Why is linearity seen as something negative now?

It's literally the exact opposite, though. FPS's like Duke Nukem 3D and Doom 1 and 2 were amazing because of how open their level designs were. And the rewards for exploring were great, especially if you came across a Secret with an Easter Egg and a cache of ammo.

Linearity in RPGs leads to much more coherent and enjoyable story, ESPECIALLY early in the game. That said, having it eventually open up (Final Fantasy VI) is much more preferable to constantly staying in a hallway (Final Fantasy XIII).

Because Open World and Battle Royale are the hottest shits in the market.
Because Games as a Service™ are a thing now and devs are too retarded to add content to a linear game.

Dont know why this threads devolving so quickly but Imo the main rhetoric I see criticizing linearity or had seen was more criticizing ff13s long hallway aproach. Not having any options for how you spend your time beyond do you take this one small turn to get an item is dull.

>Duke Nukem 3D and Doom 1 and 2
Those are linear games.
The fact that the levels are not hallways doesn't make them non-linear games.

>nouveau-Yea Forums defends corridor simulators
Contrarians were a mistake

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Linearity is seen as bad because streamers and autists want sandboxes instead of tight knit experiences.
They're the same faggots that whine about linear games calling them movies all the time, there are definitely overly "cinematic" games that fit the bill but any good arcade style game flares up their autism as well

How about instead of using more frivolous words you actually defend your point using an argument?

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Faggots just extrapolate systems of meaning from buzzwords and act like the issues of the time are all capable to those buzzwords. It's how children try to fit in.

Stop trying so hard to fit in, this tryharding makes you stand out as an insecure redditor.

There is no fitting in anymore. This sites as commonly known as reddit.

A wave of shitty third person hallway shooters created anarchetype for it.

Kill yourself cod drone

I thought I liked linearity because games like w2 and deus ex 3 were so much more enjoyable than bethesda titels
Then witcher 3 came and did non-linearity pretty well so now I like both styles of games.

It's done poorly in every game for the past few years. Near every game in general has been bad for the past few years.

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You can have linear gameplay and not be in a hallway the whole game.
>See Doom, Quake, Dick Kickem, Call of Duty 3

Sane person:
>some linear games are good and some are bad
>some open world games are good and some are bad

/pol/edditor:
>reee open world bad and linear good
>reee linear bad and open world good

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xd friend, truly

It's been seen as neutral/negative for decades but making compelling open world games used to be prohibitively labor-intensive and more bound by technical constraints. Now that open world games are mainstream Yea Forums takes the opposite stance because player agency and emergent gameplay aren't cool anymore and we want scripted events in canned levels that lead you by the nose at all times.

switch those around and you'd be 100% right

I don't know. If anything it should be the opposite. My experience is that the more nonlinear and open a game is, the less level design it tends to have.

I've always found it to be negative. Non-linear games can be fun the first play through but why would you replay a non linear game?

Because linearity means less replay value.

Non linear allows for new experiences, and Linear game's just show you the same thing again. Non linear is designed for multiple playthroughs

because the completely directionless open world is a millions times easier to do than good level design. people have been beaten over the head with "open world and towers good, coherent level design bad" for over 10 years now, so now they think linear was never good. it's why BOTW is a 10/10, despite having 1/18th the content of skyrim.

Name a good RPG (not those shitty JRPGs that are RPGs in name only) that is fairly linear.

Assuming all games have the same amount of budget/time to make, I'll always like the linear game more.

>10 small points of interest to visit
>one huge level to explore

The traveling part in open world isn't fun if you can expect the scale of things you'll encounter.

Just like Devil May Cry, right?

Just like Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines, right?
Just like Deus Ex, right?
Just like literally all arcade-ish games, right?

Most open world games really aren't so and just use the overworld as a glorified mission select screen for linear missions, so the idea that it's somehow easier is pretty stupid given that open world games are 90% of the time a full superset of what linear games are.

>linearity is good, as an example look at those games recognized for their heavily non-linear levels

>non-linear levels
Played linearly, you fucking mouthbreather.
Non-linear games let you tackle the story/objectives and locations in any way you want
Those games have great level design that rewards exploration, the game is still linear.

>if you redefine linearity to make it completely nonsensical and pointless as a definition, it becomes good

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the best ps2 games are linear

>you have to do stages in a certain order and that means it's linear
what an absolute dunce you are

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>you have to do stages in a certain order and that means it's linear
That's literally what it is.

Level and enemy scaling ruins open world games. It's not fun getting more powerful only for the enemies to scale up making you actually weaker over time, case in point Skyrim and breath of the wild. Truly linear games have little to no replayability once you've solved the combat and all the encounters. Think of something like Last of Us or HL2.

There is no satisfying middle ground between the two. Both of them suck in their own unique way, it just comes down to how shitty you want your game experience to be. Do you like waffling, pointless digital babysitters? play BOTW. Do you cinematic moviegames that force you from point A to point B? Last of us.

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It's the feeling of "I want to know what's behind this obstacle my character should be able to overcome".

Such as when you're stopped by knee-high barriers or velvet rope for no logical reason. If those were solid brick walls, the problem would not occur. The former gives the illusion of more to explore, more to accomplish, and people don't like the feeling of leaving unfinished something we want to finish.

Crowds are stupid. It can be said that the intelligence of a crowd is the intelligence of the dumbest person divided by the number of people. People complaining about video games is a huge crowd, and most of the time the legitimate complaints aren't articulated very well.

The problem usually isn't linearity or lack thereof. The problem is that many linear games, intentionally or otherwise, give off the impression that there is more to them, or that they should be less linear. A game that takes place in a building with a lot of locked doors, or in a city where you're arbitrarily barred off from going down certain streets feels like there should be more to it. That you should be able to go through those locked or jammed doors and down those streets, deeper into the city.

This is why I, and many others, enjoy games like Breath of the Wild. Though, critically speaking, they're often objectively lackluster, you get that sense of "I can go anywhere and arbitrary barriers won't stop me" and can have a great time just trying to get to places.

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Because the people who are keeping ubisoft and their ilk afloat are the lowest common denominator that thinks open worlds are just objectively better. It's a "You can go anywhere > you can't go everywhere" kind of logic

I don't really get this argument that it's satisfying in BOTW to overcome anything, because of how limited the players actions are when it comes to affordances provided by the developers. You can brute force all of the puzzles by interacting with everything turning the world into an abstract play field of contextual objects, which is terrible for immersion.

It literally depends exclusively on what you want to do and your ability to convey it. If you want players to think that the vast, broad, expansive landscape around them is yours to explore and do what you will to achieve your goals, you don't make a linear game. If you want to tell a tight story with a focused narrative structure, you do not try to fit it into an open, directionless world. The issue is that there is plenty of overlap, and this is what pisses so many people off.

Games like Tales Of X often play with the idea that you can explore the world however you like, with some sidequests suggesting a degree of autonomy, but the world is unlocked chunk by chunk until you have seen the entire world about three steps before the game is over, and backtracking doesn't reveal some ocean of side content you missed, but instead a few extra quests and skits and not much else. Then you also get games like GTA and RDR which want to tell these stories that are specifically character-driven and require you to be in specific locations, which feel like an agonizing leash that ties you back down whenever you want to wander about and explore freely, and your freedom is limited by how much of the story you have completed (certain areas are inaccessible until you beat Chapter 11, some parts are destroyed /because/ you completed Chapter 11, you'll need an item that Chapter 11 has in order to actually get high enough to do a bunch of exploring on a cliff or a hill, etc.) and as such, you are never truly free until you beat the game, and the entire story structure feels completely divorced from the experience.

What the fuck are you talking about? That's exactly what makes it fun.

Immersion is the minimization of difference between a player's actions and outcome. In short, press button -> in-game action. Anything in between breaks immersion. Input lag is immersion breaking. Inconsistent logic is immersion breaking. What you described has no bearing on immersion.

Linearity is great for focused level design and narrative structure.
If your game doesn't have either then it feels like being shuffled from room to room to keep things moving.

open world is worse

Linearity isn't bad (ie Super Mario Bros. or HalfLife1) but the word is associated with console kiddy movie games.

Maybe I'm just burned out and should problably play other genres, but whenever I see sidequests in an RPG I see tedious, repetitive bullshit that's just there to pad the game and give you rewards and XP that trivialize the main story. FFXIII was the last RPG I played and it felt like a fucking breath of fresh air.

Here's a better one: Name a good RPG (not those shitty Eurojanks that are more clunky than RPG) that is fairly open world.

Kotor series is a good fairly linear RPG.

Fallout New Vegas

probably makes people feel controlled, but i've found that games that are more linear were more straightforward to get through. like a progressive challenge rather than a scatter of pieces

Dragon's Dogma is brilliant.

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As much as I loved that game, you have to admit the gameplay is complete ass. The only thing holding that game up is the writing.

Dragon's Dogma open world contributes to its power scaling issue. If you do too many sidequests you'll quickly find yourself drastically overpowering everything. If the game were more linear this wouldn't be an issue.

Fair point. But I also greatly enjoyed just flying into free, user. Just ignoring the quests and walking into the world. Now that I've put hundreds of hours in, I've had time to contemplate some of the shortfalls naturally.

I still say it's great overall and the fact it's not relying on writing is nice too. It just felt satisfying mechanically.

Because it's an excuse to keep players railroaded so devs don't have to create as much

Open world is an excuse to keep players wandering so devs can copy paste content and don't have to create as much.

>mfw handcrafted content is replaced with procedually generated stuff

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>still have to make a huge map and shit to put in it

The main problem with the game is the combat and game engine, hold-overs from Fallout 3 which was ancient by that point. FNV had a lot of nice gameplay systems like the skill checks, weapon modding, and all the stuff you could craft with the various skills.

Making landscapes is much easier than making something detailed like a city. Especially considering most open world games don't have much fanciful geometry in their open landscapes.

>mfw handcrafted content is replaced with procedually generated stuff

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People seek stimulation above all else and humans are extremely proficient when it comes to pattern recognition.

The first time someone sees something new, it's a novel concept and is stimulating, the second time and so forth, it becomes less stimulating and generally less enjoyable. Haven't you ever played, heard, or saw something to death? You can no longer derive stimulus from it and your brain instinctively knows it.

Linearity isn't technically the main problem, it just works in conjunction with human pattern recognition in a bad way. You've seen a set of events so many times that it doesn't surprise or entertain you anymore.

The fault really lies with the fact that in this information era, you're blasted to hell and back with EVERYTHING all the goddamned time. You take in so much media in whatever form that you've probably already seen most patterns in what you've watched or played in vidya (narrative, gameplay mechanics, dialogue, etc).

You've seen most of it and remember it because a (million of other works, games, shows, etc) use the same material off each other. Linearity only makes that much more obvious and an eyesore for people. They don't even bother trying to hide the most important truth - you probably already know how the game is going to be played and how it will end.

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>mfw spend 60$ on a randomly generated game
>get bad RNG
>fail my refund RNG

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>spend 60$
Oh so this is your problem, not the generated part.

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Linearity is a bad thi-

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Open world games stopped being good after the sixth gen. After that worlds became too needlessly bloated resulted in lazy copy pasted areas. i.e. compared a 6th gen GTA game to GTA V which was just huge empty copy pasted wasteland.

both are cool and have their place.