I would like a game where you ask for directions and the characters draws a rudimentary map with a lot of flaws, but then you explore and he starts erasing and redrawing some parts to make it more accurate
That'd be really cool, but right now the best way to get that experience is (in my opinion) to play morrowind. Now I don't play it like Skyrim, nono, it is a very different game, and I probably play it a totally different way than others. I only followed the main questline up until the first dungeon, then just explore on my own, do a few side missions and make my own story. Of course it isn't perfect and it could be more engaging if it was designed the way we want it to be, but it's probably the game that does it best :)
The first 2 Silent Hill had something like this, you got a blank boring map and everytime you found a dead end or something interesting like a savepoint or a blocked door the character made a drawing and anotations in the map, it was really interesting.
Watching this video after playing and beating Breath of the Wild makes me so happy that Nintendo realized that the most fun part of having an open world is exploring it yourself without breadcrumbs and GPS systems leading the way.
@@mooganify Botw gives you a single yellow dot on your map for main quests, but that's it. It doesn't give you an easy path directly to it, and that dot can mean nothing at all if you don't even have that part of the map uncovered- You have to update that part of your map yourself, and you have to figure out how to navigate the world to get to that area
@@octaviuspenney4410 yup, plus the yellow dot only works for the active quest, if you pick up another quest before finishing the first one (very easily done, as one of the first quests given is 'Defeat Ganon'), you can switch to that one, or turn off the marker entirely if you want to. I tend to follow markers a lot (I don't play many games and I'm not great at them, so I'll take any help I can get) and tbh I just ignored the yellow markers most of the time in favour of the coloured beacons I set myself (they're easier to see in-game too, with the scope function)
This is fantastic Mark. I've definitely felt this in big AAA games and wondered of a better solution. I remember in Dead Space you can press in the right control stick and it will show you a line on the floor to where you need to go. At first I thought this was stupid, because you can just press it and go on auto pilot while you follow the bright light, but at least this is optional. You don't HAVE to do that if you want to explore. It also made sense because MOST of Dead Space's world looks exactly the same: dark bland corridors. It's pretty easy to get lost. I understand why it is there, but I wonder if there STILL is a better option.
Yeah, I like that system too. You just have to hope developers don't fall back on it too much, and do enough to make sure it's truly optional for those who get lost!
I don't know if you'll see this, but check out the way that a game like dragons dogma kinda forces/rewards you for exploration; as well as taking advantage of shortcuts and secrets. For example you get these fast travel items that you can accumulate as you play though the game multiple times in "new game" and "new game plus". Anyways, there's a cave that is the only exit for a sort of maze/dungeon that is set in a dark misty forest and the cave opens up onto a cliff right over a short distance from a few different key locations. So you place the fast travel portal item on the cliff to quickly enter back into the forest, or hop down off the cliff to the beach or to the coast town. The thing is though that you'd only know about the advantage of placing it there by doing a side quest that sends you to find the forest or by simply exploring and finding it for yourself.
Hitman, although it is not open world, can deliver a solution. The instinct system. While using instinct you move slower and can't fight and perform other actions. It is a guideline to your target, yet it gives an explanation to why it exists and it wants to be used in a limited fashion.
And now two years later the Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild only offers guidance on the main Quest, all of the side quests you have too figure out for yourself using, place names or descriptions that the characters in game give you.
The game can give you a rough idea of where to go for most of the side quests, but only one of them at a time and only if you tell it to. Your point still stands, though. Other than that, it only gives you a destination; it doesn't tell you how to get there, which can be a real challenge with some of them.
AND you can turn off the hints, the mini-map and the sheikah sensor. And it will still be perfectly playable. I found all 120 Shrines without any of those and it was an amazing experience.
@@ZeldaPodSmashers Even with the shiekah sensor/minimap, quite a few of the shrines are hidden enough to make finding them pretty difficult. Particularly the one in the snowy area under the mountain.
@@beingmegucaissuffering.5326 That one took me over two hours to find once I saw the icon on a completed map. Ended up having to figure out how to get the quest then actually finish it to find the shrine. Sure, that one had nice directions, but I would have loved being able to access it without wasting nearly 90 minutes of my time faffing around the whole map.
I always hear the "it's optional" talking point...but the real problem is when games start to cater so heavily to these features as default settings the game is inevitably build AROUND the system. Playing without it actually hurts the experience if they allow themselves to go too far with it because the game was simply not designed with taking it off in mind. I find this to be the case far more than not, and it's very frustrating.
Yeah, look at the difference between playing Gothic or Gothic 2, where there's no marker whatsoever but you can easily orientate with landmarks and instruction given by NPCs, the games like Skyrim, where the quest's explanation often becomes literally "Follow this floating marker" (so though luck if you disabled it).
In assassins creed odyssey you can turn usually find points of interest without using the map or compass because npcs often describe the location they the quest is and the day and night cycle tells you what direction you are going based on the position of the sun/moon. It's far from perfect but if you have a solid internal compass it works just fine.
@@dr_birb the problem with just disabling it is that the games are usually not made to be played without the compass. No signposts, no npc dialogue hints, no landmarks, etc. Straight up turning it off in most games doesn't make it more immersive, it makes you wander around hoping to find the next quest.
@@dr_birb I think you missed the entire point of the video. Go play a well designed open world like BotW or Elden Ring, then try witcher without the mini map dotted lines. Maybe try adding something to a conversation next time :)
Ground Zeroes had a great mission without a waypoint, you had to listen to the cassette tape and figure out where the prisoner was by what you hear on the tape, it was fantastic.
I felt really stupid when I realized I had gone there right away, but missed the cell and looked all around (killing everyone in the process) before looking up online because I gave up on searching.
Unfriendly Dude MGSV might not have been as in depth, but it still wasn't playing follow the arrow. It rarely, if ever gave you the target location outright, you had to search for it, stumble across it, or interrogate the right guard.
"Ground Zeroes had a great mission without a waypoint, you had to listen to the cassette tape and figure out where the prisoner was by what you hear on the tape, it was fantastic." And then it ended. Thanks Konami, that was really worth $30 when Phantom Pain, only twice the price, had way more than twice the content!
GTA San Andreas also had a mission like this, where Mike Toreno had been captured and only Mendez's instructions would lead you to him, only shame it kinda breaks immersion on the second playthrough but its still a nice change from just travelling to point 'A' on the map and kill something, then retreat to point 'B' right?
I personally think that such a little dotted line should be relegated to an Assist Mode. Super Mario Odyssey literally places Directional Arrows all over the Floor, but only if you activate Assist Mode. Otherwise, it's up to you to find your own way.
The first time I played Morrowind last year, I was surprised by how fun it was to read the journal and try to find my way in Vvardenfell. I felt more like an adventurer and less like a tourist.
I've been struggling to get immersed in open world games past couple of years, and I think this is legit one of the biggest factors. You end up just on autopilot when going anywhere.
There was a golden era about a decade ago... the new games are all style and little substance. Autopilot is so you can admire all the distracting scenery and the insane draw distance while you disinterestedly complete the story, don't ya know?
Now that I really think about it, you are so right. As of late I've preferred linear structures (like Uncharted) because autopilot A-Z fetch errands are no fun. Since GTA III open worlds have trended from avant-garde to fashionable to run-of-the-mill. A step backwards may be in order. Smaller, more detailed worlds without videogamey elements like the waypoint could be the ticket.
A game i think did a good mix between marked and unmarked objectives was the GameCube version of The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker. The islands you need to go to are marked and discussed about in the beginning but the optional islands need to be found and explored as well as some required item in the game may be hidden on an island that the game never talked about and you need to get information from an npc or two to figure out how to get on the island and if there is a treasure on that island. You also collect maps that will show crude drawings where a treasure is but if you dont have your main map drawn up, it will be harder to find.
Kinda late but I had this on my mind too, however I played the HD version and as far as I know there's no difference in this regard there. Asides from the fact you know save notes of what the fish said as a clue on an island (the very same fish you catch to mark the island on your map). The very best moment for me on that game was when I completely forgot what was even happening on the story and just had the quest to find one of the Kologs, but it isn't tasked to you like that; they tell you to find someone with a violin. This is where I totally went nuts and barely made any progress but had the time of my life just going from island to island marking everything, finding myself updating my health and magic and boat and how many rupees and bombs I can have without even noticing, I had like 3 days just going to the islands, taking down other boats and talking to dumb NPCs on cities and minigames and quests, taking down enemies, learning melodies etc. I totally forgot about even going to the forest island but when I did I had even more of a blast with the game thanks to this and eventually kept doing all the stuff I left hanging when I was between missions and I just could think right now "Man, if I had an arrow telling me where to go I just never would have fallen in love so much with the sailing in this game", because yes, Wind Waker tells you where you are in the map, but the map is, as vague as it gets, only showing you the island LAYOUT when you touch that part on it, and you can tell they put the islands and where they are in these squares very specifically, this part I cannot explain it but it could've been done by random and instead everything feels in the perfect place yet still just as explorative as you can get, if that makes sense and I used the correct words. Maybe that moment I had with the game was the reason I never thought finding the triforce so annoying, as I accidentally found 3 before I had to stop for the game to tell me now it REQUIRED me to do it, because I could keep doing stuff while also looking for where the rest was and because I got part of the clues on where they were and had no problem on figuring out the rest.
I think a happy medium would be a system where, if you've already been to or seen the location, then a quest's destination marker will appear on your map. No dotted GPS line though, that can sod off as a default thing. That would encourage exploration and give you a slight reward for going off the beaten path by making the quest destination appear. You've already done a searching so when you get the quest that wants you to go to the place you already know where it is, and maybe know to avoid that bear on the way.
+Mellow Gaming MGSV had an interesting middle ground on this, if you had a higher intel level you would get more 'field of movements' which where generalizations of areas that you would find enemies or targets, alternatively if you explored you might find an 'intel file' which would give you direct locations.
@@FraserSouris I think it makes sense thematically, of course the king and impa would mark where to go on your map. and it's not like you're just on a boring trek to get there since the world itself is so varied and interesting
The Souls' games approach to open, unbroken worlds makes this one of their defining aspects. From Software put just as much (if not more) effort into designing their worlds as CD Projekt RED and Bethesda but because the gameplay and player motivation are so vastly different, the player has no choice but to pay extremely close attention to their environment. There aren't giant open fields and bustling towns but there's typically 2 or 3 different areas the player could be exploring and it's not too difficult to find them. Plus you're never really told where to go and you're not given any kind of map. The world's found in the Souls games are just as, and arguably more, memorable than Witcher's, Skyrim's, and Fallout's because you're forced to explore it all yourself, as opposed to being pulled through on a leash by quests from NPC's and it becomes a very intimate experience since you're free to do it on your time.
Outer Wilds is the best game at this. there's no foresight quest log (you have to listen to people talking about locations like planets and islands and cities and musical instruments and so on) or even just looking up in the sky and flying to whatever you see, just a hindsight "what you found" log to help you remember and make sure you understood.
I turned off all of my HUD in the Witcher 3 and found that spending hours in a given location made the main map little more than something to tell me where to head if the characters didn't let me know beforehand. Most of the time, I'd just flick on my map, see the marker, and be like, "Oh, I have to head to Inn at the Crossroads" or "Gotta go see Regis? Off to Mere-Lachaiselongue Cemetery." While I agree that it's a bit lame that I can't play without using the map entirely, it significantly reduces the level of handholding. It turns Geralt's vocal reminders into your own little reminders. While that is handholding, it still feels organic in this state, refocusing my attention if I lose it. I realize that's not everyone's cup of tea, and I acknowledge that it can be annoying, the game underneath has enough depth and personality to offset that minor hiccup. But without a doubt, yes, playing without HUD in an interesting world feels amazing.
I felt very much the same way. And while when I get into a new area I end up checking the map a fair bit, I slowly begin to understand the area (are thereby the game) a bit better and actually learn the path to where I'm going. In a sense it's actually like using a real map. It also helps that I never once touched fast travel.
Yes! Gothic 2 (notr) is the most immersive rpg experience that I have ever experienced. The gothic games have their flaws but the way you truly have to explore, think , read and listen to complete quests is so rewarding compared to the feeling of grinding you get while following a quest marker.
You're really making good videos. I'm a video game developer, and your videos keeps me motivated about what I'm doing. I want to explore this smart medium even more when I see your videos. They're smart and focused. They make me understand that video games can truly change your vision of the world. Keep going!
This was one of the best aspects of Thief: The Dark Project, especially the way that some of the missions only had vague or incomplete maps. You really had to pay attention and be immersed in the world to make your way. I loved the lack of hand-holding.
Well, you've influenced me to remove the quest markers from my game in turn for making NPCs explain it to you more thoroughly. Let's see how this turns out.
+ahegao shota I don't know how it would work within the context of your game but you should take a look at how Outcast let you ask npc's for directions. Any random npc could be asked for the whereabouts of a quest/store-related character and they would give you an approximate description of his current location, if the person in question happened to be nearby the guy you asked would literally turn around, point at him and say "it's him over there"
I played Silent Hill 1 not that long ago, and i remember a cool moment at the beginning where you have a map that shows what is where. And have a quest - find key in one of the dog kennels on the "X" street. So, while it's not a hard mission - put 2 and 2 together - find "X" street on the map and go search kennels there - you still feel good for doing it yourself, instead of following some stupid marker. What i mean is - you don't have to complicate things that much and make a game that much of a navigation puzzle, but let me put 2 and 2 together and understand myself where i need to be. The problem with all that is - games that designed with marker in mind - usually very hard to navigate without it. Dead space is a good example. I hate stupid "where to go" line, but corridors are sometimes so similar and 3d map is so hard to navigate that i'm usually just surrender to it. Game need to be build from the ground up with waypointless navigation for it to work.
Thing with Dead Space is that even though the game has that, the game is also pretty much a straight line. It's not an open world game and the line is basically to help you not mistakenly backtrack. But in open-world RPG's it's definitely not something that should be there.
Also it's a lot more expensive and hard to make. It might double or even triple the time it takes to design a quest and some quests may be really hard without it, no matter how hard you try
hell, in Silent Hill, the map was secretly linear, but concealed by way of giving you a generic town map, one which is updated by the player character as you come across dead ends and one-way doors, the kind of markers that are easily decipherable even without having some written down key
This is how I played Breath Of The Wild. I turned off the map (pro HUD) and took everything in as the world presented it to me. The game however was designed to be played in that fashion if you so choose. I enjoyed this game more than ever, as I was actually immersed in the world rather than being placed in front of a video game. Great experience and it makes me understand Mark's similar opinion on this.
I like when it's optional like the clairvoyance spell is skyrim that shows you where to go so you don't get lost but it takes up a lot of magika and can only be used for a short amount of time
This is one of the best videos about the concept of meaningful play. The damage to the experience about map markers is taking away the meaningfulness of exploring the world. It's a shame so many open world games do this now. Zelda Breath of the Wild is another example of this with how it does its towers. Unlike assassins creed which the towers show all the markers on your map in BOTW players use the towers and then actively search for interesting points (e.g. shrines) mark it themselves actively and then actively follow the marker they created to find it. This is spectacular you feel like you are actually exploring and searching out these shrines and you feel so satisfied when you arrive at the shrine that you saw from the tower, rather than just climbing the tower to be handed its location on your map, which completely kills meaningful exploration.
let my friend play breath of the wild on a guest account... he skipped or ignored the dialogue and after finally activating the first tower, he was like, "what now?"
Glenn Davey But the brilliant part of that in this instance is that, if the idiot is willing to explore on their own, they’ll naturally find the next places they need to go. The shrines stand out so much that it’s impossible not to notice them, and getting a new ability from one instantly tells you to look for more. Even if you continue to ignore the dialogue, the divine beasts and Hyrule Castle are easy enough to find if you’re just stumbling around.
The first Assassin's Creed seems to be designed with HUD-free immersion in mind. You can disable the HUD entirely, should you desire. I've completed the game twice entirely without a HUD, and the game's NPCs encourage you to find missions by wandering through a general location that they've described to you. The Assassin's Bureau has a distinct rooftop dome, and can be located from almost every vantage point in a city. The Kingdom has accurate signposts directing you from Masyaf to Jerusalem, Damascus, and Acre. Combat cues are entirely visual. If you run low on HP, your screen "glitches out", letting you know you should run soon. When speaking with the Bureau Rafiq, they explain cardinal directions from the bureau to various places of note, where you can begin your investigation. NPCs throughout the game tell you to investigate by "walking amongst the people," and indeed, you will find many missions by walking through plazas and souks, paying attention to what NPCs are doing. My theory is that Eagle Vision was Patrice Desilet's intended method of circumventing the traditional "video game" HUD, with vantage points being used in conjunction with EV to find mission NPCs. It seems that this design was abandoned mid-development and the game was repurposed with map markers and a highly intrusive HUD, but as I said before, these can be disabled and the game can be played without the usual trappings of immersion-breaking garbage. Playing this way is highly rewarding if you are patient and listen well to NPCs who guide you. You pay attention more to guards, positions, and the city layout. Your eyes take in more of the city and less of the UI.
+0mikr0n Yep. AC1 was so much more enjoyable with all the HUD turned off. They drifted away from this later in the series, relying more on the GPS but you could still play without most of the time.
ninjadodo I personally had trouble playing without a GPS in AC2 onward. Too many of the objective locations are dependent upon places you've never been to before and have no instructions on how to reach.
Aye, true, but if you still use the main start map for quick orientation only leave the mini-map turned off it works well enough, striking a good balance between freedom of exploration and lack of information. Pretty much my default mode of play for these kinds of games now.
I hope they follow through on that, as Skyward Sword is pretty bad for hand holding. Link, there is a 99% chance that I will tell you exactly what to do in every situation!
+Pluto Bone If Aonuma is still involved I highly doubt this will happen. If I remember correctly he stated in an interview that he got frustrated playing with the original and never bothered to actually finish it.
I know this is an old video but I think Tears of the Kingdom is a perfect example, all kinds of quests that go by names that can pop up on your map, with vague directions and guidelines
The game where I first really noticed this being a problem was LA Noire. The studio spent probably millions perfectly recreating 1970s Los Angeles and for what? I never saw any of it because my eyes were glued to the minimap at all times. It was such a waste but at the same time, it was so advantageous to do it that I couldn't stop.
This video inspired me to play my first playthrough of _Breath of the Wild_ with the Pro HUD active (only information available is the heart meter) as well as remove all markers on my map, and I am loving every second of it. I am so glad Aonuma and the dev team developed this game to be entirely playable without the minimap.
Thanks for this Mark, that is actually how I played Breath of the Wild. After about 8 hours I turned off the HUD and all quest indicators. It was a peaceful and enjoyable time running through the world and I really felt immersed.
Why do i keep rewatching your videos? this is at least the third time i've watched this one in the last 4 years but every time i come across it i watch it all the way through.
I think a great term for what games are missing is "Environmental Appreciation". Because traversing half way across the map only requires that you follow the compass on your HUD you don't learn your environments. You don't think about them except in cases of combat when you need to be able to traverse the immediate area. You in essence never learn to appreciate them fully, they don't require that and it turns walking across the map into an arduous journey from which you take away nothing and only create a fast-travel marker to which you can now travel to further removing yourself from the environment.
This video inspired me to change my current run to one without the mini-map. Turns out that looking at the millions of dollars of rendering that they're doing on screen is worth it.
Some parts work better than others, to be honest. A lot of the time you don't get any directions to the markers on the map, which frequently leaves me wondering if I could have approached a location from another angle, or hunting for a house when my destination is underground.
Devin Helmgren It's pretty easy to navigate once you learn positioning from landmarks. Every map has several extremely high, easily identifiable landmarks
Not arguing that it isn't possible, but I'm saying I've had times where there wasn't enough direction for me to realize that I was barking up the wrong tree. One of the story missions has you heading to an underground bath house in Novigrad, and I was using the map in the menu to try and find it. Unfortunately, just using the marker meant that I had no idea that I was standing over the intended location. Also, I think he's saying in the video that he is also turning off the quest markers completely, so they don't even appear on the full screen map. Could be wrong.
Looking back at some of your old videos... I think this is probably the most influential one for me. It also harkens back to one of my favourite activities that were encouraged in *really* old games: drawing your own maps, making notes about the game world on pen and paper, and piecing together clues without being led by the nose. This is something that I'd love to see make a return - perhaps with a bit of modernisation, like was done in the Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, for its uncharted island puzzle. The map of the island was completely blank, but you could still draw notes on it like normal (using the touch screen and stylus, it was a DS game), and a sign on the island mentioned some treasure buried under the eye. If you followed the coast around the island, drawing the map as you went, you would find that the island was shaped like a big whale, and if you then went and dug by the eye, there was a Heart Piece. I haven't played PH since I was 12, and that moment still sticks in my brain. Something about it was just magical.
I love the little dotted line, as it were, and I commonly use guides that basically walk me through bigger quests, but one of the interesting things that you touch on here, those little unlisted quests, is that the guides can get to the nitty gritty of telling me right where to look, but (A) the best of these require you to find the paper/map/whatever before you can go get the treasure and (B) the guide can give you a picture or tell you where to look, but in the end, once you get to "the location", it's still up to you to find "the thing". I do appreciate the types of mods that add a tick to your map when you are close to said things, but again that's personal preference, like enjoying the dotted line, but for the extra quests, that feeling of having to spot things in the world around me IS a fun change of pace from following that dotted line, and for me, that's what makes them enjoyable. I want to have the signposts too, yes, and more game makers of large open worlds could stand to let their games be played in that manner, BUT, I think that designing these worlds with both the "dotted line" for main quests and more exploration "non-marked" mini-quests is a better design as it encourages a variety of play at once.
I never got why people complained about Morrowind's system. "Go to the cave located east of town." If you're too stupid to figure something like this out, I don't know what to tell you.
I found it frustrating because my memory for these things isn't fantastic. I found myself constantly opening the notes and flicking through, rereading where I was supposed to be going.
+jellyberg That makes sense. I never played the game, but that would be like a second hindrance. It would probably be best if they had an on-screen reminder of the direction and then you would figure out the exact location. Interesting
***** I agree with that complaint, but I was mainly referring to the fact that there were no waypoints and characters gave you written or verbal directions to your destination.
One good example that covers most of your points is The legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass. There if you find a chest, or receive an information you could draw in your own map. One place where this feature shines is the uncharted island where you draw the island
My favorite moment of self discovery was in Myst III, I was confounded by the final puzzle so I started reading some of the in-game books. Turns out hints for the solution was encoded in one of them, and it gave me enough info to work with to figure out the puzzle and complete the game.
Great video. I had a realization on this level just this year while playing Ghost of Tsushima and finally hitting a mental (and emotional?) point of dread that I was simply following the dotted line and ceased feeling anything about the campaign, the characters, the landscape etc., and also the fact that I don’t believe the game cared all that much about whether I cared or not. It just guided me to find the things and do the things and kill the things without any sense of closure as I accomplished the tasks. As you mentioned, this game (and many others from its mold) wasn’t designed to have the option to be played without the bread crumbs. Sure you could sandbox around and kill roaming bands of whoevers. But there was no sated curiosity at the end of a long horse ride across colorful and “beautiful” prairies or murky swamps. Just another boxed off catalog of quest givers and NPC conversations that are shouted into the matrix hoping that we hear it. I’m glad I found this video man! Thanks for taking the time to make it and many others like it.
Markers and breadcrumbs never stopped me from exploring open worlds. Its even the opposite, I often wonder off my route for the quest to explore surroundings which i find interesting so I often end up spending more time exploring and sightseeing than doing my current quest.
I think the bigger problem is most games with those tend to have weaker content unmarked. They refuse to let you miss anything really good. I'm collecting 1 of literally everything in skyrim heavily modded right now. I have markers and even then they only cover the most important things. i have at least 250 items that are 100% unmarked. Some of those are the size of coins. Markers don't stop my exploration, but everything really interesting by default is marked.
I had quite the opposite experience, I've never found compelling open world experience that was worth exploring. E: Come to think of it, I miss the days of the good Journals kept by the protagonists.
To be fair, doing quests in Morrowind were often frustrating because of that. In theory, giving only directions and hints for quest objectives is immersive, but if it isn't implemented well, which in Morrowind I personally don't think it is, then it frustrates the player. I'm all for games "encouraging exploration," as long as they do it well, and finding that balance between accessibility and immersion can be difficult at times.
+ParaPara Kachak I love that quest. If you played Morrowind before, you simply go through two rooms and are quickly back. If you are new player and don't know where Dwemer puzzle box is, you probably explore vast amount of dungeon, get some items, learn how stuff works and probably get level up before you found the room with puzzle box. Also on the way to the dungeon you learn about several important landmarks.
I think Morrowind could've benefited from a proper quest log that at least noted your important tasks and information related to them; the journal is kind of useless unless you want to parse through an entire history of everything you're doing, and all the arguments for immersion in the world fall apart for me if I feel the need to keep the game in windowed mode simply so I can frequently access and update a Notepad document on the side to track whatever it is I'm trying to to do in a way I can actually decipher. Without that, the game is nearly unplayable for me. It's not inherently bad, and I know some people are really into the note-taking thing older games of that sort would encourage, but personally just a basic list and the ability to recall relevant information I'd unearthed on a subject _in-game_ would've meant a lot to me.
AceOFROMS I definitely agree with you. However the thing that is hell for me is the "Circle" where you are supposed to find collect a bunch of a SMALL item. And then you waste a ton of time running around and around the circle trying to find 5 of this specific small item. Found this type of quest a bunch in FF 15. Part of the reason I've dropped it.
+Sam Boyd I appreciate this comment is a year old now, but I thought I'd mention that Morrowind already has that feature. In the journal you can select Options in the bottom left to filter information by quest, or display all the different pieces of information you've heard on any topic you've encountered.
The new Zelda took this philosophy to heart. At the very start you can go in the menu and turn the hud to pro mode, the mini map goes away. As you traverse the word the only thing on your screen will be your hearts and stamina when you climb or run. This is also considered with characters. To get to a village on the main quest I was told to go to a tower, find a river, go through some twin mountain paths, and then north past a bridge. No floating objective or interruptions and I am free to go to other places if I want to.
Actually there is a interesting benefit in it.A lot of player don't know english.The way they play the game is to go in a quest,skip the cutsence,follow the dot line,kill the enemies,get the reward point.Thats it. I was also that type of gamer when I didn't know english that much
Totally agree with this sentiment. I too remember playing Morrowind and loving the way you have to navigate it naturally, I played for many hours and knew which boat or silt strider to get to which part of the world, much like getting to know which bus or subway to catch in real life. Also I got to know the spots where you could teleport all over using the intervention spells to make hops across the map. One of the most memorable moments in that game was a quest where you had to find a valley or something in a remote area. I asked around and was told to go north along the coast to the east and look for a rock cairn and then head south. After I looked up the word cairn in the dictionary, I set of, found the little pile of rocks and got to my destination. It felt so satisfying, like I had solved the problem, not that my stat were big enough to allow me to win. So much to learn from this one moment (and not just the extra word in my vocabulary), It is one of the many factors that help immerse you in Morrowind. You can imagine people making pilgrimages to this place and getting lost in the vast wilderness, then some helpful soul leaves a marker to help himself or others find it. The NPC giving the directions is made to seem like a local, someone with the kind of knowledge of the land that a map simply wouldn't communicate. After your video it makes me appreciate the effort that went into this. Afterall, an NPC in another location would have to give a different set of directions depending on where they were located, and also then placing the cairn so that what would otherwise look like a generic landscape feature now has real meaning because we took the time to interact with and learn about the world. Having just finished Firewatch I loved getting this feeling again of finding your own way by navigating the land with a map and compass. I just wonder what might have happened if I have found the setting to disable current location on the map before I had learnt the layout of the world. Compare this to Oblivion with its fast travel and way points. I remember late in the game, when I was leveled up enough to breeze through most combat. I was finishing off quests that lost all meaning inside the game. Each quest was a boring loop of; get quest, teleport to closest spot, run at objective marker, kill anything that attacks me, collect or kill whatever had an arrow above it and then teleport back to hand in the quest. Places were just spots on a map, like travelling the subway in a strange city, you are dropped in a new location without any real idea of where you are in relation to where you were.That stuck with me. In a play through of Skyrim I did like you said in Fallout 4 and turned off way markers and forbid myself the use of fast travel. I used the map provided in the game box, rode on wagons and walked paths following sign posts and landmarks. I was a slow and cumbersome way to play a game not designed for this, but it made Skyrim feel big and real like it should. Cities far away felt... far away. And along the way I came across a lot more little quests and interesting places. I love alternate ways to play like this, often making a game feel completely different and adding new experiences. Like Nuzlock runs in Pokemon or the time I played Fallout 3 but making a rule to guide my questing, I spoke to people near by and helped the first person who asked for help, and when I finished, I spoke to more people until someone else asked for help. Got me into some hairy situations when I took on something I wasn't leveled high enough for, but was memorable and fun
I've had an idea for a game rolling around in my head where the difficulty level chosen at the beginning of the game would affect a lot of these things. It was right around the time that zombie apocalypse media started taking over, so I thought it up around the idea of survivors immediately following the major outbreak(I tired quickly of the "woke up in the hospital after SHTF" trope). On the easiest level of difficulty, your character is a former special forces soldier, which gives you things like better physical fitness(faster/stronger/more stamina), more useful weapons and related skills(faster reloads, better accuracy), and position-tracking GPS. On the highest difficulty, the player is represented by a senior citizen or a parent trying to get their young child to safety. Their story would begin in a more densely populated urban setting, they wouldn't be able to move as fast or carry as much, they wouldn't start with access to the same weapons or have the same degree of proficiency with them, and their navigation would be restricted to hand-drawn maps that didn't show the player's location, and/or weren't as accurate. The idea was to tell the same story of a zombie apocalypse, but from the perspectives of three or four different characters, with the quests and goals changed around to reflect the different priorities of each. That way it can be engaging to players who want/need all the UI amenities, whereas those seeking more of a challenge could play essentially a stripped down version, where everything - not just combat - was more of a challenge. Would anyone reading this play something like that?
The first Assassin's Creed game is actually completely playable entirely without interface, and the options screen gives you the option to turn *all of it* off! The only truly frustrating part is where they segment the cities into smaller chunks with invisible walls that prevent you from going where you want. Those are harder to grasp without a minimap. But you can learn to tell, with your eyes, which towers you've scouted from and which you haven't. Audio cues let you know if guards are suspicious of you or not. Side missions stand out while using eagle vision (many of them visible from any given synchronization point), and many of those also involve loud shouting or suspiciously clear conversation between NPCs that you can overhear while traversing the rooftops. Those additional details you can collect for each target by doing said side missions often include maps that you otherwise never have a reason to look at, but without a minimap, can provide some good clues once you get to the assassination itself. None of this is made obvious by the game itself... to the point where I don't think it would be possible to play that way the first time through, without learning how things work beforehand. Always felt to me like a wasted opportunity... But I did beat it that way on my second playthrough. All the way through, zero HUD elements. More games should strive to make that possible.
You know what? I say forget the Adventure Line (TM), what has it ever done for us? We're intelligent people, right? Why can't we make up our own story?
TriforceP That reference fits perfectly the topic :D Also I didn't thought about it, but now it seems to be quite obvious metaphor to how many modern games are treating players.
I'm playing BOTW right now and it is so refreshing to have an open word game where you can make progress by going in any direction. Being lead by curiosity as you have said is very rewarding.
This aspect always baffles me and how under appreciated it is. The first thing I always do when starting a game is to turn off all the HUD elements. If it is not possible I try to find a mod to do it. It is hard to explain how much more immersive and beautiful a game looks like without HUD clutter everywhere. The sad thing though is that many games are unplayable without the "magic arrow" since no other direction is given. It is so incredible stupid how game developers spends years to create this massive immersive worlds, and then just slaps an artificial cluttered HUD over it all, negating all the immersion you could have in thinking that world actually exists and losing yourself in that world. It just completely artificial and flat. All you have to do is follow the magic GPS and you dont have to even think or even pay attention to the world.
Also regarding Fallout 4 and quest markers. I know there was a mod for Skyrim (I think it was called Better Quest Descriptions) that altered the quest descriptions to be more.. descriptive. So you could play without the quest markers but still be able to find your way through reading the quest log. Of course it would still be more difficult than just following a magic gps arrow, but at least you would have some pointers on where to go as I recall. Maybe something like that also exist for Fallout 4 now, not sure.
The spell in skyrim that paints a pathway to your way point was extremely helpful a few time in my play through. Cause sometimes I don't have to the time to search for something the old fashion way.
The memories quest in The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild was one of the best side quests i've ever played imo, you had to look at each picture and try to find clues pointing to which region then find the exact place that picture was taken all without any markers or npc dialogues.
Outer Wilds is the same, and I loved it. they OW designers were inspired c. 2010 by how good the old Zelda games were and how bad the new ones were, ironically.
And that's why Skyrim on PC is so great. Absolutely any of these casual annoyances can get rid off. And don't believe you gonna find that on the Special console edition.
Designing the game via exploration is the key here. The Witcher 3, newer Elder Scrolls, Fallout 3, NV and 4...it feels like they're mostly designed to play with the marker, as if your character knew the cities/region when someone talks about it . I personally like Fallout 2 a lot because even though it never tells exactly where the next "quest objective" is, the cities/dungeons are restricted, so you know where to search for at least and won't wander off.
There is a point to be had about characters knowing the area to a degre. I mean the curior lived in NV, so why does he/she not know where anything is? (I mean sure the headshot, but still. itd be cool to have characters know some of their area as backstory). Same for man RPG characters they should know some things.
Your character should know the basic layout of Boston in Fallout 4, and plus you have what is believed to be a GPS-enabled map. In Skyrim, it's not like you were just born. The game is best played as a Nord from a story perspective anyway, just like Morrowind was best played as either a Dunmer or Imperial. So you should know a little bit about the area. That said, I do like games that are built with exploration in mind.
The first thing I noticed when playing Wild Hunt was how I looked more at the compass thn the game world itself. Turning it off solved that perfectly. Now I would have to open the larger map to know where I was going, and to reduce the number of times I had to open the map I had to memorize roads villages and other landmarks. After a while all I needed was a quick glance at the map after taking a quest and I knew where I was going. Wild Hunt became a much more enjoyable experience thanks to this.
I feel exactly the same way about that hand-holding dotted line! The chap with the funny hairdo brought to mind Kingdom Come: Deliverance. There's almost an identical quest brief (at least in the beta there was) where the guideline is a similar explanation: follow a path until it forks, you see a rock face on your right side, go down the hill, etc. And there's no dotted line, but a nearly photorealistic virtual forest landscape to take in and locate the landmarks from! It really adds to the immersion a bunch and feels that the beautifully rendered geographical features and foliage are there for a gameplay reason, too. My all-time favourite game, Outcast (of which there's a HD remaster out! You should play it!) had a really nice non-hand-holding quest system as well. Need to find a character? He should be to the east from here, hanging around near a big temple. Travel east, spot a temple, ask a farmer for the guy you're looking for, and he either tells you he's seen that person a way off to the north, or if he's nearby he simply tells you "that guy there" and points a finger. No arrow in the sky, no dotted line on the map, no HUD marker flashing above the target character's head. These simple interactions made the world of Outcast so immersive that it's still my benchmark when it comes to believable, immersive, open world game environments and I'm always disappointed when an "open world" game ends up being a forked pipe or starting a quest means following an arrow on the map.
That's why the soulsborne series are masterpieces, they have the faith and trust that the player has enough acknowledgement and patience to explore those worlds. That's why i am pretty excited about Elden Ring, it will be the first open world of FromSoftware and i want to see if they have those details. I'm sorry if i didn't say it very good, i don't have a very good english but i will keep getting better.
I usually don't comment on RU-vid, but I need to say this: I love your content! We have very similar minds when it comes to game design and I enjoy hearing your opinions and ideas. And here's two questions to make this comment less one-sided: What would you say if Fallout4 only offered players a pre-war map of the area and the player could update that map themselves? And what do you think about Fallouts replayability in general?
The pre war map sounds like a great idea! I'd be totally down for that. Would really bring the post apocalyptic theme into the gameplay. Damn, now I want that. As for replayability - for me, the charm of FO games is diving into new locations and finding the little pre-war stories and item scavenger hunts inside. Which you can't really do twice. Which is why I'm so pleased to have FO4 - for me, it's just fallout 3 with fresh places to explore (and better graphics)! (I played Fallout 3 while reading The Road, and I think that had a big impact on how I played). So all the stuff that encourages replayability - karma stuff, different quest choices, choosing factions - just isn't as interesting to me. And it seems like you'd have to do a lot of the same stuff twice to get to it. Feels like a one time experience in general, to me
This is so true. For Far Cry 2 as an example. I loved how you needed to check your ingame map constantly to figure out where to go, i also liked that you had to use a gps thing, in order to find diamonds, which wasn't just a collectible but also currency for the game.
I completely agree with you Mark, and am also happy that you brought morrowind as an example. The experience of finding a quest location was really immersive and it had an interesting side effect: you could get lost in the world, and end up exploring new places or get into dangerous situations, asking yourself if you should go back or keep going further into unknown territory. The dotted line is like a gravitational force that pulls the player into a certain direction. Exploring then feels more like "straying from the path". That, and "rapid travel", did more hurt than good to open map exploration games. Great videos, by the way! I found your channel not so long ago and it stands out, as there are not many that discuss game mechanics and it´s effects on the way games are played.
I was playing Skyrim a while ago, when one of the inn keepers told me to deal with a drunk patron. That started me on a "quest" where I had to follow a trail of clues to find the patron's wife. The quest was about an hour, and it didn't have any questions markers or quest information or log. You had to remember ever detail yourself, like place and characters names.
Glad to see Elden Ring doesn't have objective markers or quest logs. But I must say, even though I feel more immersed and free in the open world, it can be frustrating not knowing if you completed or failed a quest. There's this request in south Limgrave from a girl who wants to persuade her father to leave castle Morne, a keep overrun by beasts where he serves as commanding officer. So I go to the keep, look arround and found her dad. I gave him a letter from his daughter asking him to leave but he decides to stay as he swore an oath to protect the place. I then fast travel back to his daughter to tell the news but unfortunately I found her dead, slaughtered in the dirt. I have no idea what to do next. Should I tell her father that his daughter is dead? What good will that do? I much rather have him die with honor than to let him kill himself out of guilt. This is a FromSoft game after all. Still, I'm glad this oldschool, non-accessible quest design isn't gone and hope to see it more in future open world titles.
Did you beat the boss of the castle? You can talk to the dad again after, then travel back to the daughter to see how it continues, although I'm also not sure what happens after that point.
Morrowind is my favorite example of realistic and engaging in-game navigation. You have to literally follow directions and read sign posts and double back several times to figure out where you're going. It was such a charming part of exploration! Just planning my travel around the game world was such a wonderful part of the journey!
This channel is a much needed cure for this gaming age. Channels such as this should take the time to help in improving the playing of games - as much as they do for the making of games. And this video is a perfect example of the ideal balance between the two.
BOTW's exploration is fantastic. However... How it rewards such exploration is very lacking... I see this game as a proof of concept of how video game exploration could be handled more than a game in itself, because as such I don't think it's that good.
oh Mark, you're such a tease! I don't know you, but I have faith that you would be a rousing success in anything you put that curious brain to. Thanks for replying.
This here is why I'll never forget the Wind Waker triforce piece quest. When you finally get a piece, nontheless the whole dang thing, it's so satisfying because of how much work you need to do to triangulate their position. It's not insanely difficult, and might be a little tedious, but it really makes you feel like a treasure hunter, finding ways to make ruppees to get charts translated, then using them to pinpoint the location via a picture you need to line up with the sea map.
I agree, I always enjoyed the triforce search for those same reasons. Not to mention I also was such an exploration nut that I would usually already have a good number of the pieces before the quest even started.
I totally understand what you mean, Sir Brown! That's the reason why I play these types of games more than once or twice! The difference of RPGs of the PS 1 and 2 games and games of the 8th generation can really be so different as it deems incomplete when done and completing it again with guides and the internet, but at the end of the day, it feels so gratifying and satisfying to either be guided or be lost simultaneously when playing it again, and again!
You're doing the lords work by raising awareness to this concept. I played Morrowind again after another video mentioned this concept, and I was truly amazed and still remember how much more I appreciated the places I was going to and enjoying the experience of fumbling my way through and stumbling across other encounters at the same time.
Just wanted to remind that Geralt has a history and has been to velen and skellige lots of times. So I guess its okay in this game to have a minimap with markers to reproduce his knowledge you as a gamer don't have but need if you want to roleplay Geralt. It also underlines his sensitive senses. But i see your point and games like dark souls do a great job to fill this need for exploration. The witcher 3 just had other priorities.
Yea he is also one of the most seasoned and knowledgeable witchers in the world(who by the end of the second game no longer has ammesia), yet he still needs to learn about every basic monsters and potion, etc like if it was his first day at work...
It's levels that cause the problem. Get rid of levels, and you get rid of this "start game as complete rookie" business. It worked in Fallout 4, where your guy was new to post-apocalyptic life, but an experienced witcher or Batman on his LAST case should start at full power. Red Dead 2 handled it pretty well -- some of the obscure weapons were progress-based, but Arthur could hit a flying bird with a revolver at the start, and that revolver was perfectly servicable throughout the game, just like in real life.
Games should be designed without quest markers, and the default option should be having them disabled. Then, just add the option in the menu to turn them on for those people who don't want to think.
Only works if they include NPCs that offer clues as to where to go what to do. More often then not the games are built around blindly beelining it to the checkpoint as your only clue as to where to go
I gotta say I love the "old" system as well but... I can't say I truly miss it without some nostalgia kicking in. See, when those games such as Deus Ex came out, I was a bum...I mean a student, so time was a more abundant commodity. As time passes by, time to dedicate to games diminish and keeping track of everything you were doing can be quite the work in open world games. Heck, even with help I usually end up starting a new game of Skyrim every time I get the need to play it because I'm utterly lost about what I'm doing in the place I am, for who I was doing it and to what purpose. So yes, I did love the freedom, but I can't say I'd get the same satisfaction out of the title without the help that is built into it these days. Nothing wrong with either system I guess, more of a to whom it caters issue.
After watching this video I directly thought about a recent game that was kind of a technical disappointment but that I enjoyed a lot despite the technical problems that people could find in it : The Sinking City. It has a very interesting quest system in my opinion that is based on a map with streets names. You got documents, informations, archives too, and you gotta use those informations that are given to you to be able to find your next location. Most of the time it's basically "the factory is located on Cove Street, between Redrun Lane and Blabla Avenue". Then, you check the map, look for the street or information that was given to you and set the waypoint by yourself. I really enjoyed this idea, that the map was really useful, especially in a sense that the main character is a stranger who discovers the city of Oakmont, so you gotta process, memorise and understand where you're going, in which direction and all. You still have hints and a few helps for those who don't want to get such complexity in finding destination, but you can even turn those helps off, forcing you to read even more documents, talk more with people etc. A shame the game didn't work that much and was not having a decent budget to make it perfect, because mixing such ideas with the Lovecraftian world was amazing, and I loved it so much. Just a friendly recommendation for anyone coming back at this video after 4 years and looking at the comments.
He just nailed THE THING that made Morrowind my favorite game of all time. Having to ask for directions and piece together where you're going was a level of maturity in gaming that my 15 year old brain simply was not prepared for.
Wow. I have been playing open world games (Stalker, witcher series, elder scrolls 3 to 5, gta, fable, borderlands,dying light, batman arkham, lately yakuza) for a while but never truly grasped how damaging quest markers were to immersion. I realise now how few memories of iconic/meaningfull places I have from these games... On the contrary, a game like Deus Ex HR, which had the particularity of not telling you exactly how to go someplace but just the exit, had me far more engaged in the physical universe of the game. You've decided me to disable minimaps and markers from now on, to get the most out of each game, thanks a lot !
On another note, I recently remebered the original Operation Flashpoint. It's quite literally a sandboxy war simulation as is, overall. But there was one mission where you're dropped into the wild, after escaping an enemy camp or so such. It's nighttime. And you were demanded to navigate by the STARS above. And could. Reminds me of the genius in Thief 1's Bonehoard. You're navigating a series of crypts and tunnels, tasked to find the magical Horn of Quintus someplace. The maps are vague on purpose to begin with, and at one point, even Garrett, the character you play, notes down a "WHERE AM I?" on the map. At some point you'll get to hear the horn, and can navigate to its place all by the use of the 3D audio (which still holds up today). Genius concept.
I love that Zelda BOTW also doesn't have these dotted lines that point you to the right direction. It's similar to W3 where NPCs give slight directions just without the dot pointing to it. It gives me the ability to immerse myself more into it and finding things on my own.
Played Wild Hunt for the first time in February. Took your advice and deactivated hand holding. I've finished it now and thoroughly enjoyed it, even discovered things at first try that surprised early gamers because the waypoints didn't ever take them there, like the elevator of Kaer Trolde. Then again, I am a slow paced gamer, ramping up the difficulty to make the games last longer, roaming endlessly to get to know the world better, and not rushing the main quests until I absolutely have to. Thanks for your videos. They're a gold mine.
I played a lot of The Witcher III without the minimap, and it’s definitely my preferred style of play. It’s not a navigation game, so you can’t reliably figure your location find all the quest targets without consulting your map, but working out your own route along the way is much more satisfying. I love exploring the world naturally and discovering locations on my own. It makes exploration 200% better.
Zelda Breath of wild open world might turn to be best open world games of decade. In Breath of wild the map is not filled with icons and the side quest are all cryptic.
oh crap i didn't think you'd actually respond. I would've given a detailed version of my life story and all other kinds of jazz, lol jk, but um.... I'm currently pursuing the solo game dev Life while i'm in college, and these videos you are making are a good supplement for a game design course my school doesn't have, so keep on making them and thanks again. ps. My favorite video of yours is your Vanquish depth and mastery video, i'm actually keeping that videos information in mind as i prototype my current project. Alright that was all I wanted to say, so thanks again again!!!
The best things about these types of large open world games is that it is really difficult to find Walkthroughs for it without asking a question on something like GameFAQs so it motivates me to play the game and figure it out by myself.
I like the way that Braeth of the Wild does its memories. They are pictures like the treasure maps, and you can go and hunt them down on your own if you so desire. Or you can ask a person for help and he'll point you in a general area, but you still have to hunt it down in that region. I think that's a great balance for that specific quest.
Sorry Mark, but while you have great points, you have to realise that as games get larger and larger, most of us just don't have the time to waste for the "delay in gratification" that you suggest. People in full time work/study really don't have time to get lost, because it's frustrating and it's the best example of "a waste of time". While sign posts for you to find your way around is an EXCELENT idea, and that the main quest on Fallout 3 might as well be off for an hour or two, I gave up on Fallout 3 in 2009 precisely because I was constantly getting lost, was overwhelmed with too many things to loot, no indication of how important things like Wonderglue and Scrap Metal would be, no indication of what perks I should be picking when I level up (I mean, REALLY, I'm supposed to read ALL THOSE PERKS and then pick one?) no indication that I shouldn't be fighting Super Mutants early on, no indication that running away was a valid tactic, and absolutely no indication of how rewarding a side-quest would be versus how much real-life time I would require to spend on it. Coming from Mass Effect to Fallout 3 was a huge disappointment. Fast action and intense plot twists versus wandering around a map system that wasn't friendly to newbies and annoying loading times just didn't cut it for me. Fortunately a friend of mine recommended me to try Fallout New Vegas (Ultimate Edition), and maybe because I was unemployed at the time, maybe because you have to walk in a U-shape from Goodsprings to Novac as a forced tutorial, I ended up learning the game and actually liking it. Yes, eventually I ended up doing ALL quests available (390 hours in my first walkthrough, including DLCs), but I still didn't risk getting lost and followed a fantastic walkthrough made by a guy called eolsunder. So while I don't have the same opinion as you, and support your preference by suggesting that game developers suppport the necessary asymmetry necessary to accommodate both of our play styles, I'm sure that I'm not alone when I say that wandering around... ain't nobody got time for that.
Now that Breath of the Wild is out, I'd love to hear your thoughts about how they treat the open world formula. From my experience, they do a lot of what you're looking for in this video.
I'm so happy Remedy went for a somewhat "oldschool" approach with Control and yet people criticised the ingame map for being "useless". It's like this meme: "How easy do you want your games to be?" "Yes." In Control you often get a marker in which area your objective is, but there are often two problems the player has to figure out: a) how do I get there? and b) where exactly in that big area do I find that small gap, door or switch I need to interact with? And it feels great when you work out the solution to these problems by reading the mission description that gives you more details about it; by reading directions signs within the areas helping you to find that path or location you were looking for. It feels so much more immersive and that's the reason why I always deactivate GPS routes in games like The Witcher 3. Coming from games like Gothic and Fallout I'm used to that and it's great to really embrace the world you interact with and traverse in. Following a marker or any other "meta layer" feels exactly like that: you're playing some kind of mini-game within a game which is ultimately pretty boring. Thank you making this video!
i started enjoying mirror's edge catalyst a lot more after i turned off the floating red line that's constantly showing you the way. it gave me a chance to actually look around and explore the world
