Ruins every open world game

This is possibly the worst analogy I have ever seen.

Yeah, whenever I find myself in a mystical medieval fantasy land the first thing I do is check my phone in order to orient myself better.

Genabackis?

you don't have a keyboard and mouse in a fantasy land either

This is possibly the non-argumeniest non-argument I have ever seen.

your issue is the fucking map marker you retard.
what kind of actual open world game wouldnt even have a map? retard poster.

this

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A good one, I guess you need to have been born before GPS and maps were widely available in order to know how rewarding navigation can be without easymode tools, which means zoomers understanding it is out of the question.

>average non-autist picks up open world game
>finds out it doesn't have a built-in map
>either gets frustrated out of being lost and not knowing where he is and quits OR mods in a map for convenience's sake

I enjoyed BotW consept where you yourself pin locations of interest.

what kind of actual open world game wouldnt even have map markers? retard poster.

Fuck assassin franchise

>average casual picks up open world game
>finds out it doesn't have built-in map markers
>either gets frustrated out of being lost and not knowing where he is and quits OR mods in map markers for convenience's sake

Kingdom Come: Deliverance had one of the best maps in a modern game, it wasn't super precise and was styled like an actual medieval map to boot. On hardcore mode, I don't think there was an icon for your character either, so you had to actually follow road signs and learn to recognize landmarks.

even fucking doom had a map you dumb fucker.

"around before maps" what are you fucking 1600 sailor mother fucker. jesus stupid bastard.

>fucking zoomers i'm not wrong you're too young to know better
aight

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That’s because it’s not supposed to be an argument. You’re not wrong the analogy is just dreadful.

>literally outing yourself as a zoomer
yikes!

>maps were widely available
What the seventeenth century or something? Maps have been widely available for literal centuries dude.

he's just repeating meme words at this point, thread over. rent free, by the way.

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what example do you want? bards quest? where every single building is the same and you map a maze on graph paper?

That's not a feature worth having in all 3d open world games, the restriction of it being grid based is what made the true mapping viable with the extremely limited information.

>zoomers think people used to carry physical maps with them when going anywhere

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bet you dont eat while playing a game because the character cant eat at the same time as you either.

>"meme words are not an argument"
>uses meme words
oof

yeah, the realism of mystical fantasy lands. I hope there are giant swords and that I can shoot fire out of my hands. True realism.

>maps exist in the world
>retards willingly believe they dont exist because its """"too convenient""" and they need to feel superior to other people who played the game

jeez... its pretty embarassing.

Metroid I and II didn't have maps and those were kinda open.

Literally all I've got.

If the lands are explored it would be stupid to not have a map. If it's unexplored there should be a mapping mechanic to create one.

You'd had to be clinically retarded to think that a map ruins open world.

The problem with many open world games is
>piss poor readability in the world, difficult to orient yourself and find points of interest
>overuse of map markers and other ui elements, including breadcrumb systems like "witcher sense"
>not enough elevation difference so you can get a good scope of the land from higher up and pick out where you want to go
>no worthwhile content. copypasted bandit camps, sidequests, etc. that just become busywork
>traveling through the world is boring and slow, just holding down or tapping a button while moving in a direction is garbage. traveling should be more fun and engaging if you expect the player to travel a lot or make it less tedious

A map that fills in helps orient the player, show progression and can help them see where they haven't been yet.

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On hardcore mode there is no mapmarker and also no compass.
I loved walking through the game paying close attention to all the crossroads and other landmarks.

Yeah, fuck Adobe. They ruin fucking everything

this post has every point worth making, including an incredible example.

>going adventuring == going to wash your balls in the river

>A map that fills in helps orient the player, show progression and can help them see where they haven't been yet.
You need to explain why these are inherently good points, while map markers and breadcrumbs are inherently bad points

>just because it exists in real life, it should exist in games as well
Bet you solve all combat encounters in games by calling the police

So you're saying players not being able to orient themselves, getting no sense of progression and to not easily tell where you haven't been are positive aspects?
If anyone needs to explain, it's you.

>while map markers and breadcrumbs are inherently bad points

Because they're a crutch to support poor level/world design.
If players need constant UI arrows and elements that constantly point them exactly where they need to go that means
>the level has such poor readability that it's required for players to even being able to orient themselves
>they stop taking in and observing the world, because their attention is fully focused on a UI element and not the actual game world

>A map in and of itself is actually an absolute necessity in an open world game.
t. has never played minecraft

road signs and crafted maps are all you need faggots

minecraft HAS maps retard.

t. has never played minecraft pre-1.6

A significant portion of java edition players use a minimap mod.
the rest rely on map items

>A significant portion of java edition players use a minimap mod.
Disgusting
>the rest rely on map items
Completely pointless considering the small size of crafted maps. The greatest feeling in the world is going on a massive adventure in Minecraft, losing your way, running in circles until you finally see a faraway light, and the precise moment you realize it's a torch at home Subwoofer Lullaby starts playing.

alright, sure lets use an unfinished game as your example.

Minecraft isnt an open world game, its a sandbox game. Because the world is randomly generated theres no point having a map.

>wanting to get lost
>wanting to misplace hours of work
>wanting to never return home
>wanting to have to start all over again
user, i...

>alright, sure lets use an unfinished game as your example.
The game does not need a minimap mod to be complete you absolute pleb
>Minecraft isnt an open world game, its a sandbox game.
>Deus Ex isn't an RPG, it's an FPS
The work isn't lost. You just have to find it.

you literally fucking used some asinine fucking argument about insisting on pre 1.6

stupid fucking autist.

In the military ncos and officers have carried maps since the first world war.

Surely this boils down to two things
>Make the player position gps marker thing toggleable in options
>Have enough different looking shit at different height that the player can navigate by it.
Done. Every side is happy.

No I didn't. You made the argument that maps are an absolute necessity. Anyone that played Minecraft pre-1.6 can tell you that isn't the case.

did they make the game worse though?

>Lost
>Adjective
>that has been taken away or cannot be recovered.
t. user is a cuckold that gets off to having his shit go missing because he cant be assed to do basic shit like install a minimap mod, use F3, craft a map, or open notepad and write down the coordinates of his home.

No, because they're optional.
>M-W
> 5a : unable to find the way

And now can you imagine someone can have the same complaints about maps?

Instead of being forced to explore and acquaint yourself with the world, you just consult the map, instead of wondering what's behind the mountain, a town, a forest, a river, the coast, you just look at the map, if the map needs to be revealed first, you just need one pass through an area and you can ignore it for the rest of the game, instead of being surprised at the scale of the world, you just extrapolate based on a distance you already passed and know how much time it takes to traverse it. You might call it convenience, but keep in mind that's what most of the mainstream audience thinks about hand holding navigation.

>Make the player position gps marker thing
I don't even understand why this is a problem.
Not having your position marked out on the map is just a stupid idea.
The map is there to help orient yourself, but when every time you open it you have to sit and study the map extensively and working your way back on how you traversed just to tell where you are right now is good design, how?
This also means that your map needs to be way more detailed.

If you allow players to toggle, then that means you're saying it should and can be played both ways since they're both supported. But if the map, etc. isn't designed around it then it's a dumb option to have.

Like in RDR2 where you can turn off the minimap but you can now no longer complete missions without pulling your hair out since they mark out specific areas on the minimap you need to go and do shit at.

>implying Google doesn't already have detailed information about that world before you even get there
Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh. You touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding.

>unable
>as it cannot
holy shit deny your cuckoldry some more, im sure that'll bring your high school crush you called your girlfriend back.

>states last forever
also, lmao'ing @ your "high school crush" comeback kiddo, you must be a sophomore in undergrad now.

The fuck are you on about?
You haven't made a single good argument for not having maps in this entire thread.

I mean jesus christ you're against maps but you're totally FOR ui markers and breadcrumb systems? Like what the fuck. You're for the systems that deactivate players for exploring the world THE MOST.
You're legit confused.

It's to appeal to people who like orienteering and roleplayers basically. A knight or whatever would have a regular 'stupid idea' map without a gps marker. They still made maps back then you know.

>sit and study the map extensively every time
You haven't done much outdoor shit, have you? You know approximately where you are because you went there for a reason, following the map. It doesn't take much time, it's something real people do, and it forces you to really look at the game world instead of just the marker.

>if the map isn't designed around it, it's dumb
I agree. That's why a whole 50% of the post you're replying to pointed out that the map needs to be designed around it for this to work

no im married with kids because im not a hopeless degenerate like you who cries about the fact that people like to have maps in their open world games

I'm showing my kids your posts right now, say hi to them.

We need maps to function w/o the player knowing where he/she is (no compass/ whatever you call that shit) like Outward. Only landmarks / places of interest.

I liked Morrowind's map

How is that any different from a handholding path telling you exactly where you need to go?

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>going on about realism

Unless you're making a sim, there is no point in every valuing realism over a better user experience.

It's not. Is that a problem?

>merchants, traveling knights, caravans and armies just guessed or tried to remember where the nearest point of interest was
>n-no way they actually used possibly somewhat inaccurrate maps, maps didn't exist before gps

because you just read the terrain at a large scale, not a path you moron. Are you trolling or legitimately this brain damaged? Your only examples have been minecraft (has maps), and skyrim (fucking awful).

Only person crying about being cuckolded is you kid, I just enjoy going out on a journey and not knowing when I'll return.

I can't argue with someone who lacks basic literacy skills

and to add to your point, if they didnt take a map its because they already knew the area and locales. Before that they would've used a map. So it makes sense for a game to have a map for you to use until you are familiar enough with the area.

or give you no choice at all in travel so no need for a map

>born before maps were widely available
yeah, unless you're literally 100 years old I seriously doubt you were, either

Maps have been and continue to be incredibly important. Suggesting that someone going out on a huge quest in the world wouldn't have a map is downright moronic.

try killing yourself, sounds like you'll really like it.

>Ignoring every other point
Okay then

For some people, that IS a better user experience. Why wouldn't you want it toggleable? There's no downside to a map with distinct features and landmarks even if you do use the gps thingy

The purpose of games is to create artificial challenging but solvable problems in order to appeal to our innate need to problem-solve and achieve things, a game designed to be as comfortable and convenient as life would defeat the whole purpose

>minecraft HAS maps retard.
>t. user is a cuckold
>holy shit deny your cuckoldry some more, im sure that'll bring your high school crush you called your girlfriend back.
>im not a hopeless degenerate like you who cries
>I'm showing my kids your posts right now, say hi to them.
>try killing yourself, sounds like you'll really like it.

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The fact that you think only one person ITT is arguing for removing maps shows how deluded you are

>there were no maps before gps
Do you know what a fucking map is and why it exists?

the challenge of most games isn't looking at a map though is it. So the point is that using a map to determine location can be an enjoyable challenge, but a tedious one for a game where it isn't a mechanical focus.

In relation to the OP comment, it means we want maps to suit their games.
so really, its that most maps are a bit too easy for most games.

only two of these are me lamoid

That's why almost all the pro map anons want the player location either not shown or toggleable

>journeying through a medieval world is "as comfortable and convenient" as normal life because you have a map
If you just want to play a pennyless dirtfarmer then good on you, there's no way an actual adventurer would not have at least a crude map, unless it's completely uncharted territory. And then the game should give you a mapping tool to simulate your character charting his travels

You don't have a single good point and you don't counter the points I made, you're just delusional and close-minded. Adamant about REEEE NO MAPS for no good reason at all.
You then completely illogical suggestions like how UI elements and breadcrumbs are fine, but maps are not, WITHOUT EXPLAINING WHY.

>Instead of being forced to explore and acquaint yourself with the world, you just consult the map, instead of wondering what's behind the mountain, a town, a forest, a river, the coast, you just look at the map
Not if it needs to be filled out as you go.

>if the map needs to be revealed first, you just need one pass through an area and you can ignore it for the rest of the game
Entirely depends on the AoE the map is filled out with and how you plan on making exploration worthwhile. Or is your idea of exploration just walking around on a map? That there isn't actually anything to do except walk around? There is no reason at all to enter houses, check around strange rock formation, etc?
This part of your post is so incredibly weak and undefined it's just a joke.

>instead of being surprised at the scale of the world, you just extrapolate based on a distance you already passed and know how much time it takes to traverse it

There are many ways around this, one being that you don't create invisible walls on the map screen or distinguishable borders.
Also, potentially knowing the scale of the world is a non-issue compared to getting lost, having no sense of direction, no sense of progression, etc. while being FORCED to rely on your beloved UI elements to lead people around and actually deincentivize exploration.

>hand holding navigation.
You're pro UI and breadcrumbing, you clown.

Do you even have a single example of a game that does what you want well? Or are you pulling shit out of your ass?

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Let me fix it:

>make maps items you have to acquire in game
>maps are not 100% accurate. They are drawn by people ingame, not satellite pictures.
>No fucking player marker on the map. Player must use landmarks for orientation.

Gothic 1&2 do this and it works

sounds really cool, wouldn't want it in every game but sounds like it suits the game.

>maps are not 100% accurate.
I like the rest but this sounds like it could easily lead to some frustration if not done very carefully

I was drawn into mmos with Runescape precisely because I could be a penniless dirt farmer. Now there are no games where you start with nothing but an open world and are expected to make your own fun and that’s incredibly disappointing.

>For some people, that IS a better user experience
If it's not a sim, there is no point in valuing realism over the user experience. Realism for realisms sake is just dumb.

Is it realistic to have to eat, shit, sleep, not having a map, dying in like 1 hit, getting sick, etc? Yes. Would a few people think these things in games would be awesome? Sure. Would all games benefit from this? Absolutely not.

You look at what kind of game you're making and for who and design the game around it.
If the goal of the game is not to meticuously study a map as some cartographer and map out new areas or some shit then there is no reason at all to have that in the game, since that's not the focus. Otherwise you end up with a confused game with no focus.

The whole point is the frustration. Learning to deal with problems with you developed set of skills after something goes wrong. That’s why Morrowinds quests are remembered fondly, because you were guaranteed to get lost and would have to struggle just to find the area where the quest was even set.

I know what you've described, and I enjoyed it too, but I think you've described it very very poorly.

Yet confused games with no focus are the only games that sell anymore. Skyrim is an all time best seller and has no singular vision or direction. Even shooters today have leveling mechanics. Focus on tight knit mechanics is outdated game design.

Inaccurate maps are a bad idea if your world isn't readable and distinguishable enough. As in generally lacking detail and not being unique visually enough with tons of landmarks.

Intentionally frustrating your players is also generally a bad idea that would only backfire when people are used to better systems. That more comes across as some nostalgic wish fulfillment to try and recapture the good old days thant actual good design.

To add on to this, a map that fills out never has to reveal scale because it can always focus on the maximum distance between the two revealed points furthest from each other. So at the very start of the game, the map would only show maybe a couple 100 feet around the player and then zoom out as time passes.
That's how some Metroidvanias and games in that style do it. Hollow Knight and Ori and the Blind Forest come to mind.

You should know I'm not really approaching this from a realism point of view. I like orienteering as an activity. So it's more "realism for the sake of finding one aspect of realism fun".

You're right in that I don't want to take a shit ingame, but if some people want to, I'm fine with taking shits being toggleable.

Are we arguing the same thing though? I specifically only want the player's position on the map to be a toggleable feature. I don't see how that makes for "a confused game with no focus". There's a mod for far cry 2 to do exactly this and it works fine, even in a game without that many landmarks. You can still mark objectives on the maps, which would have made the mapless mode in RDR2 better, like you brought up. I know because I played the whole game without most UI and map, and that part didn't always work so well.

what kind of retard are you, maps have been a thing since civilization was a thing, exploration and maps literally go hand in hand, the problem is super accurate gps, quest markers and minimaps that tell you exactly where you and everything else is

I don't see how you disprove anything I said.
Is your argument really
>intentionally design bad incoherent games for no reason

>An open world can be used to set the mood even if it's not used as the primary gameplay purpose
Atmosphere is fine and all if you can back it up (like an actual lore on the places or actually offer unique environments), but you might as well be an autist if you think you could scrounge any fun without those and are literally just time wasters that are just boring. Morons like you are the reason why lazy companies like Bethesda and Rockstar keep getting away and churning out garbage like RDR and Skyrim.

I farted.

That's a different user

Intentional frustrating your consumers is the entire philosophy behind mobile gaming as a whole but they are doing decently right now, making multiple billions a year and all, so I think your point is completely without merit.

immersion and exploration,not that fucking complicated, yeah you needed the minimap for the actual missions in rdr2, but turning off your map when you go exploring or hunting was kino and immersive as fuck, finding the way back home using nothing but the signs, roads and land marks is just satisfying

It would have been cool if some game (or a mod for the game) included map as the actual ingame item, allowing you to write, fix some stuff and so on.

Underrail was released without any map. The game has 6 interconnected layers and around 400 areas. Now it has a map and no fucking GPS which is good.

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one of the big appeals of etrian odyssey is mapping, although its a ds game and kinda limited its still nice.

And add speeds like yourself are why companies like EA can put in micro transactions in all their games because you get a little hit of dopamine every time you drain you bank account for a chance at getting that soccer player you really wanted.

I played most of System Shock 2 without realizing it had a map, it actually made it very interesting, memorizing the starship's layout.
But even with that experience I know a fucking map is still mandatory in open world games.

Quest markers, waypoints, compasses pointing the way, those are the real shitty systems that should be blamed. They trivialize open world games, and make them feel small and somehow linear.

Some dungeon crawlers do that. Etrian Odyssey for example. You draw you own map and can completely fuck up

>I'm fine with taking shits being toggleable.

Biggiest issue with making it a toggle is that you still have to 100% support both ways. Otherwise it being an option is dumb, as with for example the RDR2 example prior.
It will also very easily lead to an extremely confused game that doesn't know who it's actually for.

>I specifically only want the player's position on the map to be a toggleable feature

This would need to be 100% supported. So that if you turned it off you would never get frustrated or annoyed to the point where you turn it on again, alá RDR2. Because then it's no longer actually an option, just something unsupported you slapped on there.
In other words the map would have to be incredibly detailed, the level would have to be exceptionally easy to read and distinct to the point where you could *always* tell where you are and where you have been. This would take an extreme amount of extra work and would lead to a far smaller world overall unless you have infinite time and money.
All this for no real good reason. Like how would you convince your world design lead, game director, producer and publisher of this?
What arguments?

>Biggiest issue with making it a toggle is that you still have to 100% support both ways
This.
No gps games have npc telling you were to go.

>and would lead to a far smaller world
and that's how it should be. I don't care about the topic you're discussing but open world needs to die

>Intentional frustrating your consumers is the entire philosophy behind mobile gaming as a whole

No, it's about psychological manipulation. They're more focused on reward systems and tricking people into thinking that it's good value and normal to spend money.
For example you pick up collectibles on a level and you died right near the end so you'll lose those collectibles unless you beat the level... but lucky you! you have 5 seconds to buy this 1UP for 500 crystals that bring you back and gives you a chance to beat the level!

You'd run out of food and water in a medieval world anyway. Hence the communications between towns in which maps are made.

morrowind

>immersion and exploration

Not once have I felt extra immersed and that exploration is more rewarding by not having my position marked out on a map.
It legit annoyed me in Hollow Knight because I did not play that game to feel like their map system is so fucking shit that I felt that me making my own hand drawn ones would be better.
It does the exact opposite of immersion since it takes me out of what I was doing to have to sit down and spend several seconds every time working out where I was and where I am before I can even start to look at where I want to go. It's pure tedum for no good reason at all. It's not challenging or difficult, it's a chore.

>What arguments
First off, the actual toggle part is extremely easy to implement. I'll get to world design though.

I think most people this appeals to would be fine with occasional confusion. It's just something you have to deal with and sometimes you get confused when out orienteering too. It's not really a problem but milage may vary on that.

As for needing to design everything around it, I'll point to the Far Cry 2 mod again. The game was made with the GPS in mind, and still it works without it.

All you need is landmarks interspersed in the world and decent draw distance to pick them out. Again, I'm okay with quest locations and so on being on the map, just not the player's. RDR2 would have worked fine that way.

I don't really see why it's paramount that the player never turns it back on if something goes wrong. That's just like checking the wiki or whatever for a part you can't figure out.

You keep mentioning the game being ruined by confusion and not knowing who it is for. Isn't this just two groups? Those who like the base game, and those who like a bit of orienteering in it. It's not like you're adding many new layers and features. Just one.

In this system you would know where to go in the same way as other games, just not your own location without figuring it out.

>Biggiest issue with making it a toggle is that you still have to 100% support both ways.
well not really, it only works one way, you can have a well designed world with npcs telling you where to go, and if you add the option to toggle quest markers on top of that then everything is fine, the opposite doesnt work though.
as for RDR2, the world is designed well enough for you to travel without a map, the only problem is in the heavily scripted missions and objectives

games are supposed to be fun

stumbling around for 10 hours only for the end result (of whatever you're looking for) for be lackluster is not

>and that's how it should be.

No, the world should be well designed and fun to explore. Not bloated.
That doesn't mean that it has to be so excruciatingly detailed because of a toggle option.
Absolutely no senior dev at a game company would green-light this over a toggle.

the type of people that gets frustrated or annoyed because they make a single mistake isnt the type of player that would enjoy a well designed world anyways, getting lost is part of the fun

Only a zoomer would not have gotten tired of open world games.

Maps should be a mid-to-late-game highly expensive item

what fucking toggle are you talking about? I said the worlds should be smaller, making them more detailed and fun instead of making at as big as possible with as many points of actual interest than the sahara desert

But RDR2 can work without gps. There are enough landmarks to orient yourself. The issue is finding the triggers for missions. You can only see them on the maps.

The world size isnt the issue if its well designed. The problem is no one ingame telling you were to go. "go to x" isnt enough. And not seeing how to start stuff when in correct area.

What is a map and compass.

well then you don't enjoy exploration, it's that simple, i have a pretty good memory and that shit absolutely never makes me frustrated or annoyed, it just makes me enjoy the world more after figuring out where everything is and navigating all these places im now familiar with.

>That doesn't mean that it has to be so excruciatingly detailed because of a toggle option.
I think you're vastly overestimating the level of detail needed to orient yourself. It could be on the level of 'the town is between the fuckhuge mountain and the large forest', and as long as a few peaks are visible when you're in the forest getting out if it works.

honestly they should have just said fuck it and gave you physical quest markers like in the old gtas, maybe not a giant red beam of light but something that tells you it's there

try more like three thousand years old

>I don't really see why it's paramount that the player never turns it back on if something goes wrong. That's just like checking the wiki or whatever for a part you can't figure out.

Instant red flag. I will never agree to implementing systems that are not fully supported. If they're an option they should both be equally viable and you should never ever feel that you should have to turn it back on to play the game.

It's like in an RPG you give the players various skills, linguistics, backgrounds, etc. that never ever come up or one is clearly superior to another. Like the "Thug" background comes up once and results in a throwaway dialogue while the "Police" background offers better rewards, entering restricted areas, more dialogue with cops, etc.

I also do not like the idea of designing your game around having various systems and then just turning them off, like Tomb Raider 3 (reboot) did. That's bad sloppy design.

>You keep mentioning the game being ruined by confusion and not knowing who it is for. Isn't this just two groups?

Two very distinctly different ones. For example trying to make a sim and non sim game in one game makes very little sense.

Hollow knight map system is good. Dont know what the issue is. But I also enjoy inventory management and preparing for runs/journey ingame.

why? why wouldn't maps literally be an essential object for people living in whatevr worldbuilding you're doing.

do you want a open world without a world, like inhabited by retards.

One thing I really liked about the Eschalon games is that you have a separate cartography skill. Maps get more detailed as put you more points into it, and they update as you travel through old areas with a higher skill than you had previously.

The games are okayish overall (except 3, which is garbage), but I really liked that aspect of them.

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Accurate cartography was in large part tied to the development of european expansion; they're not that old.

The entire world has to be instantly recognizable no matter where you are. Areas can't look alike or even samey. If one end of the map looks similar to another end of a map (say a forest or rocky area) then you've fucked the player and this will lead to guaranteed frustration.

I do not understand this plea to not have the player location marked out at all. That is not even remotely an issue with open-world games and is such a big problem to tacke for no real benefit.

>Hollow knight map system is good.
It's ok if you like it, but don't get me started on it. It's possibly one of the worst map systems I have ever seen in a game and it's the system I would point to for how not to design it. It's also confused.

>It's like in an RPG you give the players various skills, linguistics, backgrounds, etc. that never ever come up or one is clearly superior to another. Like the "Thug" background comes up once and results in a throwaway dialogue while the "Police" background offers better rewards, entering restricted areas, more dialogue with cops, etc.
this is good because it highlights your minmaxing mentality and why you dont understand people not enjoying being at a disadvantage, because in your example the thug background sounds like an equally fun experience, having to sneak in restricted areas and making do with less information

He'd at least be knowledgable enough to know what kind of people to look for if he couldn't make his own maps.

a peasant would make sure to learn his surroundings and landmarks

>The entire world has to be instantly recognizable no matter where you are. Areas can't look alike or even samey.
is your player a literal 1 year old retard with autism? because thats the only way you could justify saying this, people are able to navigate old ass dungeon crawlers where every single wall looks the same just by looking at intersections, sounds like you just have short term memory problems

I'll concede the confusion part. The argument that you don't have to change the game world much just for basic orientation remains though.

>two very distinct ones, sim stuff
Are they so different though? Whatever base game this would apply to would remain, it's just that getting from point to point is different. So it would be 'shooter fans who just want the action' and 'shooter fans who want to orienteer to the same action'. This is a very light sim addition I'm asking for at worst.

This is a made up problem. Of course the player would know which end of the map they're in. Especially the type of player to enjoy this stuff. You don't cross the map by following the map and not notice it.

>big problem to tacke for no real benefit
The benefit is some people have more fun that way. I think that's a very real benefit. It's the "big problem" part we disagree on. Again The FC2 mod did it with without tweaking the geography at all, and the game was never designed with GPS-less play in mind.

>map by default is blank
>you have to travel to towns to buy part of the map
>smaller towns/taverns on the road have rough more sketched up maps
>bigger towns and cartographers have more expensive, but properly filled out parts of the map
>you have to patch the entire map together to fill it out

Attached: A1TnP-0SEBL._SX700_.jpg (700x471, 98K)

>simfags at it again

What happens if you travel outside of the maps you've bought?

>this is good because it highlights your minmaxing mentality and why you dont understand people not enjoying being at a disadvantage

No it's bad design. Players do not know beforehand the consquences. How one is clearly inferior to another options without it even being hinted at. Players rightly assume that all the selectable roleplaying options are supported, but then they're clearly not.

This is a failiure on the designers part. Period.

maybe gacha games are more your speed, everything is streamlined just for you

>Map system discussion in the map system thread
Oh no, Yea Forums is truly going downhill

>all forests look the same
>no way to know which forest you're in
>forced to just aimlessly run around for extended periods of time until you might bumble your way out
This is how you break player immersion in one easy step. How you make players not wanting to play your game anymore and give it a bad rep. Bravo.

very rough sketch only indicating basic geometry or just a blank area, like a blank piece of paper

you fall off the Disc and land on the Turtle, duh

If you can't understand why thug would have a harder time than a cop then no, it's not the designers fault, it's the players fault for being a fucking retard.
Making everything the same and holding your players hand through everything IS bad design and why most modern games are so sterile and boring

>no way to know which forest you're in
How? You're the one that went there. Do you not remember which forest you went to?

>Forced to aimlessly run
What? Do you think navigating a forest by map is impossible?

Dude, you can make maps 2048x2048 now

>Blank area
How do you get out of the blank area then? You can't navigate

literally never happened to anyone with a brain unless the forests are LITERALLY copy pasted, RDR2 had huge forests and it was still easy to navigate without a map once you've been there for a while thanks to the terrain

>using maps in minecraft
absolutely disgusting and yikespilled
I believe you have autism if you can't find your way back after an adventure, you literally just walk the way you came

You can throw around your absolutist declarations all you want, they don't make you right.

>If you can't understand why thug would have a harder time than a cop then no, it's not the designers fault, it's the players fault for being a fucking retard.
You misunderstand.
For example, if Thug has exactly 1 dialogue option and for the rest of the game it is never even brought up while the Police one pops up constantly that would be bad design.
That beyond that first dialogue option, "Thug" never ever comes up at any other point in the be it through gameplay, dialogue, no nothing. While Police and other backgrounds come up frequently.
At that point Thug should either be removed or fleshed out more, otherwise they feel that their "Thug" option was basically pointless.

terrifying

>If one end of the map looks similar to another end of a map (say a forest or rocky area)
Wrong. You use landmarks.

I'm basing this off game design research and talks from actual pros. We're talking most likely every single narrative designer's work you respect and haev enjoyed, because they all say the exact same thing.
Only exception would be literal who devs making unknown indie games which just wing it when they make their games.
Also see

It's best when you can gradually piece a map together instead of having it available on the get go. Or if you can get it as a reward for completing a quest...

I'm not saying I want all open world games to be like this, but I think there is a niche that isn't being filled. Which is fairly small to medium sized open world games with high information and detail density, in which the exploration does feel meaninful like Shenmue (and NOT like Yakuza). Traveling upon large open areas is fine, but it does get tiring and overplayed.

Attached: .jpg (853x1280, 438K)

That's the point, every single square inch would have to be instantly recognizable, but at that point why be so adamant about not having the players position marked out since they in essence do the same thing.
That is unless you want it to be intentionally obtuse for no real reason.

well yeah at this point its obviously bad design, not because of the idea but because of the execution. VtMB does this well where nosferatu is so ugly they have to navigate the sewers and can't walk outside on the streets or talk to some npcs, and even though the city is not obviously perfectly designed for them and they sometimes have to take risks in being seen, it's still a fun and different experience with its own challenges, just like navigating an open world with no map even though you can get lost for a bit sometimes.

>every single square inch would have to be instantly recognizable
No, it wouldn't

Can't you just...not open the map?

>every single square inch would have to be instantly recognizable
Why? You dont orient yourself on the point you are standing currently. You look to the mountain, hill, clearing, village, river, street, large tree, rock formation, bridge etc to orient yourself.

Its not: "Where is it in relation to me?"
Its: "Where am I in relation to it?"

> every single square inch would have to be instantly recognizable
This is ridiculous. You must have never had to navigate anything in real life, ever, if you think this is true. You keep ignoring the fact the the player would know roughly what area they're in, because they're the ones that went there. You ignore that you only need broad landmarks to navigate. And you keep saying 'for no real reason' even though it's been pointed out multiple times that some people like looking around and navigating by what they see compared to the map.

We want a map, just not something telling us where we are in it.

dude that's not how exploration works at all, you really only need a few landmarks visible in the distance to tell where you are, not everything has to be recognizable, how the fuck do you think people did it before gps? Humans are really good at navigating space with very limited information, people used to do it with just the fucking stars

If the game isnt designed for it, its not really working. You need ingame clues.

>This is ridiculous. You must have never had to navigate anything in real life, ever
The difference with games and real life is that real life doesn't have limitations. A game can't have an infinite amount of unique trees, rocks, mountains, formations, streams, etc.
They're created assets that will be re-used.
This applies to all games, but can quickly become a problem for open-world games.
In addition, the bigger the worlds the less handcrafted they can be.

Attached: Capture.jpg (1491x650, 190K)

This is the most stupid comment I've ever read on this board

>yfw Risen's map improved as you progressed through the world and you started off with very few things visible like "this is the city and this is the camp now go fuck yourself"

>b-b-b-b-b-buh people will get lost and frustrated and not want to play
Good, fuck casuals. Yea Forums needs to go back to being elitist.

>pic
ignore the 3 tree stumps. Use the tower on the cliffedge in the back to navigate...

In your pic, which has mountains, a tower of some sorts, a fortification and a raised plateu, you would navigate by individual trees?

The game would never be green lit, which is the point. We can all live in magical christmas land but if we're talking about fixes that would realistically be made, then things Yea Forums wants quickly starts getting thrown out the window, because it's ultra niche.

The point with that image is that assets are heavily re-used so you can't create as unique looking worlds as real life unless you spend an absurd amount of time and money on it.
When you have to re-use assets things easily become samey.
You would probably need to create tools that could procedurelly generate content and then allow the seeds to be saved. But the tools themselves would take time to develop so they were good.
All simply because you don't want to mark out the players location on the map? I don't see how that's worth it.

> A game can't have an infinite amount of unique trees, rocks, mountains, formations, streams, etc.
dude... THAT ONLY MAKES IT EASIER TO NAVIGATE
>oh its the stream, i must be north of that city i just visited
also for your pic why do you worry about the trees and not the giant tower ,cliff and mountain behind it that can probably seen from a really long distance?
You honestly sound like an anxious person who needs to have everything under control at all times and thats where most of your issues stem from

>GPS maps
>Minimaps
>Quest markers
>Fast travel

This kills the role playing game

Deus Ex Hong Kong is what i want

caring about video games made by committee for mass appeal is your first mistake

No

You just need landmarks as navigation beacons.

>The point with that image is that assets are heavily re-used so you can't create as unique looking worlds as real life unless you spend an absurd amount of time and money on it.
werent you the one complaining about realism? again, the small assets don't matter, it's the composition and the big picture that does, as well as your awareness as a player. It doesnt matter if the same tree model is used at two opposite sides of the map, you should know on what end of the map you are based on the towns you visited and bigger landmarks you see

What open-world games don't have maps?
I can't think of any that don't have one. Unless you mean something like Dark Souls, which doesn't need one anyway. That's it, that's the one open world game that comes to mind, and it's not really open world.

I agree that having you unlock it ingame style like Gothic or King's Field is the better system. Or just having it be a separate piece of paper you have to consult without having your position automatically marked on it like Ultima IV. Or building your world so it doesn't need one, Dark Souls style.
Definitely anti-waypoint. Anti-map? Not so much.

Attached: Map_full.jpg (1600x2184, 1.39M)

see for elaboration.

The point is that if you for example make a denser forest that has to re-use the same kind of trees over and over (blocking any potential landmarks in the world, since it's a forest) another forest would most likely look very much the same.
This means that you game can now no longer have dense forests, especially ones beyond moderate size, since you can't tell in which forest you are from your surroundings.
This would force players to aimlessly run around until they hopefully exis the forest. But at that point the thing you want to force (looking at your surroundings to identify where you are) is no longer an option, meaning you're going directly against the thing you want to enforce.

Also getting lost in the woods is very much a thing that happened IRL. This is even with the IRL looking more unique than a game with limited assets.

Again, all because you don't want to mark the players location. For some strange reason that doesn't really make the game better.

Assume you want to get from A to B. When you get to B, there will be an icon marking your objective.

When will you EVER wonder which of two trees you're standing next to? This isn't even the easiest map to read and there are far more features in to than you need to navigate without a marker telling you where you are.

Attached: random map with random locations.png (959x648, 969K)

They probably don't even know how to correct an azimuth.

>can be played with no minimap
>can be played with no directional marker
>items have unique size, color, and shape and can be identified on the ground easily and from a distandce
>practicality over realism
>beauty over realism
Fucking apologize.

Attached: link.png (724x654, 668K)

>another forest would most likely look very much the same.
The players normally knows in what forest he is. If he doesnt know in what forest he is because he was leaving a dungeon or teleports etc, one of his first tasks is to find out where he is.
This is actual tension. It gives you a good feeling when you know where you are. Certain kinds of people like this.

>dude... THAT ONLY MAKES IT EASIER TO NAVIGATE

Identical hallways that all look the same are more easy to navigate than hallways that all look different. This is your line of reasoning.

I'm saying that even on a small dev team you'd be extremely hard pressed to convince your other world and level designers of this.
Open world games are not made by one person and trying to convince an entire team of that what you're saying is going to result in a great game people will love and buy a lot is not easy.
Especially if you're one of those people that can't give good reasons and only go
>it's going to be good, trust me

>werent you the one complaining about realism?
What does that have to do with anything here? Sim elements are not the same as asset creation limitions. Artists can only produce so much content.
I'm also talking that doing what you want automatically restricts the kind of world you can make since things like dense forests, mountainous areas, cave systems, etc. that can easily look very samey and blocks out things like landmarks in the distance, etc. is removed.

>For some strange reason
You mean the very explicit reason which has been pointed out again and again, which is that we think navigation is fun? And that we want it toggleable for those who enjoy it?

>You can't know which forest you're in
You might lose track of where you are IN the forest, but you know which forest you went to. Like you can get lost in a city but you'll never not be sure if you went to London or Cape Town.

As for your forest example you need a forest so dense you can never see mountains or the sky, and for the forest to be the most boring landscape ever. Three fucking hills with a view and you can get where you want with some patience. And players who want to play map only mode have patience. The rest just toggle it off.

Magical map that shows you where you are is cancer in open world games and so is fast travel.

So you want to mark objectives precisely on the map, but not the player? Why? Didn't you want players to observe their surroundings as a defining aspect of the game? You're saying you only want players to do that sometime for some things and sometimes not?

I did this in a few games and it was great, some games which force the map on the menu or the inventory were a hassle, but the real problem are games which design worlds with the assumption you'll heavily rely on the map which makes self-navigation almost impossible

Only if the devs enough confidence not to include a map or markers at all. Also the fast travel system is incredibly out of place in a game like BotW.

>Why
Because that's what I think it takes to make it work for both kind of players without much effort. Navigating the world from A to B in RDR2 was a breeze, but finding your objective required markers because the game never game explicit enough instructions. It could have, but as you point out, that would be more effort for the designers which would only benefit a small portion of the players.

>Didn't you want players to observe their surroundings as a defining aspect of the game?
No, just a part of the game.

>This is actual tension
No, frustration and eventually boredom. The two basic pillars that cause frustration and boredom are
>not knowing what to do
>not knowing where you are or how to get to where you want
To clarify, for example know that you need to save the town from a bandit attack? Got it. Figuring out how to do that is interesting and a challenge. Not knowing you're supposed to save this one town from a bandit attack so you just run around not knowing what to do for several hours when you want to progress narratively leads to frustration.
If players wants to reach a goal but they keep running around in circles or keep getting lost then they will become frustrated.

Tension comes from threat. Like "I have to hurry back before nightfall because that's when the bandits attack" can cause tension, but being stuck in limbo would not.

>what kind of actual open world game wouldnt even have map markers?
the good ones

Sometimes it works - Dishonoured comes to mind, you can turn off every waypoint and it works dandy.
Sometimes it doesn't - you aren't finding shit in Fallout 3 without waypoints.

Sometimes you can't even avoid fast-travel - Fallout 3 again, and Kingdoms of Amalur come to mind as games where I tried to avoid fast-travelling and that didn't last long with either.

But why would a thug not be able to access crime syndicates, mafias, and cartels?

In a perfect world games wouldn't be designed around the ADD lowest common denominator

>run around not knowing what to do for several hours
No one wants that and you know it. If it takes 'hours' to get there then yes, the in game geography is unsuited for this type of gameplay.
The rest of this is just you not liking navigation, which is totally fine but that shouldn't preclude the option for others

>NO STOP WANTING THINGS YOU WANT ONLY YOU WANT THEM YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO VOICE YOUR OPINION

>navigation is fun
You can navigate with having your position marked as well. Figuring out how to get from point A to B in itself is navigation if your world isn't just a flat surface. Figuring out where you are every single time time is not navigation, but orientation.

>And that we want it toggleable for those who enjoy it?
Toggle is dangerous ground since both ways needs to be supported and the amount of extra work for the toggle would be considerable since it would always have to be supported at any point in the game. Which can restrict what you're doing or inflate the budget.
Options only matter if they'e meaningful.

>but you know which forest you went to
Not always the case. Teleportation, underground caves and coming out in different locations, not having played for a while, etc. There are many things that can mess with your orientation. If the player position was marked, this would a a non-issue, but because you allowed the option for a toggle it now becomes an issue that restricts and controls what you can and cannot do. For very very little actual gain.
That time, effort and money would be better spent elsewhere.

>Tension comes from threat. Like "I have to hurry back before nightfall because that's when the bandits attack" can cause tension, but being stuck in limbo would not.
Im stuck in this forest and dont know how to get back to village before my supplies run out. Thats tension.

Fine, then it's orientation. 'Where you are' is almost always 'where you went' unless you fuck up, so it's not like you're going through this big process every time. I would know, I've done it

>Extra work for toggle
Cut the 'display nav icon' function if toggle is set to yes. 'Supporting it' is simply a matter of having a decent amount of landmark

>Options only matter if they're meaningful
They certainly would be meaningful to those that enjoy orienteering.

>not always the case
I'll concede this. You do need the landmarks, we just disagree on how many of them you need.

>Very little actual gain
It would please certain players immensely

And if it fucks up and you can't orient yourself once in a while, I'd be perfectly happy to turn it back on for a second.

>not knowing what to do for several hours
Dont be ridiculous. Its very easy to measure how long it takes for a player before he finds the first landmark. If he is lost for 5 to 10 minute and then he finds out were he actually is gives positive feelings. Also those 5 ot 10 minutes are still filled with gameplay. The player isnt running circles in a void, he is still discovering the world.

I played New Vegas without fast travel and it created an interesting dynamic, if I was halfway to my destination, but resolved one of the quests I got at my starting point, I wouldn't go back to turn it in, but rather continued on and waited until I had more reasons to go back to my starting point, such as more quests that revolve around it. I'd do everything in "bundles" and keep a mental checklist of stuff that needed to be done whenever I'm in town, since every journey was precious and I didn't want to waste time.

I think a similar principle could be interesting if applied to maps, if they were a rare and expensive real world object only found in towns, and not something you could carry around. You'd get quests pointing you to different locations, go over to a large map of the region in the town, see where you need to go, maybe draw a rudimentary map of roads and landmarks and your destination either ingame or in real life, and then set off without any other guides until you hopefully find another map at your destination, with new regions relevant to the progression of the game.

>The rest of this is just you not liking navigation
I don't mind navigation and I often went on treks and hikes. I also drew my own maps as a kid.
But this isn't about me, this is about a game's design in an open-world that would actually be realistically doable and not lead to tedium.
Games are not real life. Taking a bath IRL is not the same as taking a bath in-game.
Unless the focus on the game lies heavily with studying maps, your surroundings to orient yourself, etc. then the things you want has no place in it. The game would only become derivative and confused, typically resulting in an annoying experience for everyone since you don't even know your target audience.
Trying to appeal to everyone is generally always a bad idea if you want to make a good game. Just look at games like Overwatch that is designed for casual players but wants to push esports as well. The game is too shallow and streamline for competitive to ever become great and the competitive aspects make playing it casually never great. It's a confused game.

They would, but the point is that if one option isn't really supported while other options are, that's bad design.
If you allow something to be an option, it should be fully supported. Not just slapped on and feel underbaked.

Nigga is that some Zack and Wiki

I thought the discussion was about how to fix open-world games, not describing our own personal dream games.

>Im stuck in this forest and dont know how to get back to village before my supplies run out. Thats tension.
Because of the second addition. Just being stuck in a forest doesn't cause tension in game because you're just stuck and can't get to where you want. That's frustration.
But your example can cause both tension and frustration. Like they keep getting a game over because they're stuck and can't figure out how to get to where they want? That's a prime example for people uninstalling the game and leaving a bad score/user review, not recomming it to their friends and posting a complain thread on forums or Yea Forums.

>uninstall the game
Or toggle the option

Another thread of where people pretend it’s fun to have no map or compass and how most of us should enjoy having to boringly look around at landmarks the whole time to know your precise location.

>Teleportation
In which scenario would pc teleport in a completely unknown supper dense forest, though? I can't remember any game that has this.
You can also make teleportation work like it did in the Morrowind and teleportation is not going to be an issue.
>underground caves and coming out in different locations
You can keep track of where you've been going to and how much distance you've covered. It can help you to pinpoint your location.
Also, after leaving the cave you can try to find higher ground, as well as some points of interest and use them to navigate.
>not having played for a while
You can add dynamic map that the player himself can change, like I've said here

We're talking about having the option to, no one wants to force it on everyone
>Pretend it's fun
Believing people who enjoy things you don't are lying is a sign of psychopathy

How can you get stuck? Keep moving forward, follow a river, try to find a path, look for waypoints, orient yourself using the sun, find a village/town and hope someone knows the directions etc. If you lack basic human skills maybe you shouldn't be playing games, hell all games are designed with the assumption you have two arms and diplegic people still find ways to play them, there's literally no excuse.

>They certainly would be meaningful to those that enjoy orienteering.
Meaning it would have to be well-implemented and thus inflate the budget for an extremely small number of players.

>It would please certain players immensely
This is the key word, "certain players".
Is pleasing 1% of players for an inflated budget worth it? No.
Adding some smaller details and such for a low percentage of players can be fine, but when it ripples out to affect the entire game by allowing an option for an incredibly niche playerbase it's no longer worth it.
Of course you could just slap that toggle on there and not support it at all, but I would never go that road and just cut it entirely. Because the players that do use it and become frustrated over how poorly implemented it is would reduce that already low percentage to an even lower number (as in players pleased with the option).

One of the bigger fears in open-world development is players getting lost and confused (because data actually shows that players stop playing the game). Why do you think the excessive use of UI elements, breadcrumbing, etc. is so popular? Why do you think simplistic design like towers that mark out everything is so common?
Frustration and boredom is the death of any game and devs want to avoid that at all costs.

>things Yea Forums wants quickly starts getting thrown out the window, because it's ultra niche.
Except when one of the most sold open world games of our generation does it.

>you can't create as unique looking worlds as real life unless you spend an absurd amount of time and money on it.
>When you have to re-use assets things easily become samey.
>You would probably need to create tools that could procedurelly generate content
You just CAN'T make a good game! It's impossible! Everything needs to be procedurally generated and with only a dozen recycled assets!!!

Attached: duelingpeaks.jpg (1024x576, 98K)

>we have unironically reached a point where Yea Forums is defending catering to the lowest common denominator

Are there any games with a map and compass but don't show your current position and orientation on said map? Because that would actually be realistic.

Based mesopotamian user

Then this boils down to us thinking different in how much it would 'inflate the budget'. I say a very small amount of extra detail is needed, you seem to think it's a lot. It wouldn't work for every game of course but I'm not advocating that either.

>Why do you think simplistic design like towers that mark out everything is so common?
Lowest common denominator isnt good game design. Same for design by committee. Games made for stupid people are mostly stupid and BORING.

oh and every fucking game is the same shit. (see ubisoft for example)

nexusmods.com/farcry2/mods/286?tab=description

Try this for FC2. The game wasn't made with it in mind but magically, it still works.

>Wasting time on videogames
>chad

>In which scenario would pc teleport in a completely unknown supper dense forest, though? I can't remember any game that has this.
Point is you can never disorient the player and then have them exit into an area where they don't instantly know where they are from their surroundings, meaning it's exactly the same as marking your location on the map anyway. You can't have them exit into dense forests and stuff if you have several dense forests. It actively restricts what the devs can do because they have to support a toggle.

>You can keep track of where you've been going to and how much distance you've covered. It can help you to pinpoint your location.
In open-world action/adventure games with combat and shit you're asking players to start measuring distance and direction? Keep tabs on their direction at all times?

>How can you get stuck? Keep moving forward, follow a river, try to find a path, look for waypoints, orient yourself using the sun, find a village/town and hope someone knows the directions etc
Point is if you're in locations where your sense of orientation is restricted (like a dense forest, caves, rocky mountainous areas, etc.) then players won't know where they are. So they will just aimlessly and thoughtlessly wander, which isn't interesting and leads to frustration and boredom.
This means devs cannot make big dense forests or what have you, but small constained areas that are always open and clearly communicate where the player is at any time. By limiting what devs can do you then directly limit the world design, which makes it more samey, making the world less interesting to explore.

You need to go back

He said "the majority" not "every single facet", you pretentious psuedoludogist faggot

That sounds like a pain in the ass, but it can be done, Phantom Hourglass Allowed notes.

You can disable the player icon on the map in ARK and make a compass, it's not that hard to navigate either. The Forest doesn't have a compass I don't think but you can disable player icons and navigate just with the map.

>This means devs cannot make big dense forests or what have you, but small constained areas that are always open and clearly communicate where the player is at any time. By limiting what devs can do you then directly limit the world design, which makes it more samey, making the world less interesting to explore.
This is already the case though, except it's made even more trivial with GPS and waypoints and bread crumbs etc. Name one dense forest from a game, just one.

>Except when one of the most sold open world games of our generation does it.
BotW did not do what many players ask and it is not a well designed world.

In fact BotW only worlds because of the graphical limations and how ugly it is. The world in general lacks detail. Any game that goes for realistic visuals adds "noise" that makes it far harder to distinguish and far harder to make it more easily readable.
BotW doesn't need to tackle these problems because of the graphical limitations.

BotW world is basically the terrain tool, some blurry textures, no advanced lighting (for materials and meshes) and some meshes sprinkled out here and there.

Attached: CaptureLQ01.jpg (1602x864, 222K)

actually go outside and go orienteering, its actually quite fun and teaches you how to use a map

subnautica only gives you a compass and that's if you craft it IIRC
I really can't get into it because I get lost and scared

>Lowest common denominator isnt good game design.
Neither is trying to appeal to both a niche and wide audience at the same time.
Pick one audience and design the game around them.

>This is already the case though, except it's made even more trivial with GPS and waypoints and bread crumbs etc. Name one dense forest from a game, just one.
I thought we were talking about how to fix open-world games, not retread the same mistakes Ubisoft & Co are already doing ad nauseum.

My point is that learning to navigate and orient yourself without a map is even more fun, not that markers and breadcrumbs are good.

>people don't want the player position to be marked
So you want the player to have access to the entire from from the beginning? Since if it's filled in the player will know where they are so long as they keep moving. So what fun would there be in exploring the map if you have the map already?

Attached: 1414600250750.gif (220x212, 2.57M)

Darkwood did it nicely, where it filled in landmarks as you got close to them, and otherwise it was a fairly useless blank piece of paper.

Why didn't you take a road?

I remember pirating these at some point. The story fell fucking flat at some point. Gameplay and gimmick builds were decently fun though.

depends on how they are implemented
mini maps and compasses are all shit

>dangerous ground since both ways needs to be supported

Toggle would be supported inherently by making a world that isn't flat and putting major and semi-minor landmarks on the map, either through contour lines or through deciding what gets put in on the map, any issue of frustration at being lost is similar to boredom from traveling for too long, in that it is a problem of map size and density.

that point was reached long ago. We're below that.

1 was okay but being ambushed every day was annoying
i love 2 and i have no idea how they manged to fuck up 3 so badly.

>into an area where they don't instantly know where they are from their surroundings
Well, first, making orientation so easy that the player can instantly know his location will defeat the point of such mechanic in the first place. It has to be more subtle, or the reward for finding a way will be abysmal.
>You can't have them exit into dense forests and stuff if you have several dense forests
Yes you can. It can create a sense of tension or wonder. Of course, it also means that the devs would have properly setup other parts of the game for such scenarios to work (making then interesting visually and geographically, adding cool encounters and enemies, quests, loot and so on). See DaS1, for example. Wondering into ash lake was fucking cool.
>measuring distance and direction?
It's not really hard. You don't always fight in those games, you can use this free time to think about your position, draw a map etc
Also, games barely have restricting elements in the first place.
How many open world games with dense forests can you name? I can think of only KCD.
>rocky mountainous areas
Not a problem, m8. They are themselves can be a good point for orientation. Just make them distinct enough. If Morrowind could do it, then new games should be able to do it too.
>So they will just aimlessly and thoughtlessly wander
Foolish players maybe. In the forests you can follow the river, look for sights of human (or non human) activity, follow certain direction (north, for example) where the town is located and so on.

Because it would be retarded to live in a time period with writing and sea navigation and literally nobody ever before you made a map of this shit
It makes sense for some games like maybe you're stranded on some island, or like minecraft where you basically are the only intelligent thing that exists in the world.
Most games don't have these settings though.

>B otW did not do what people asked from open world games
>It worked, but it only worked because it's ugly and lacks detail
>botw doesn't need to tackle realism problems because it doesn't even try to be realistic! Aren't games all supposed to be realistic?
Just download it from pirate bay and shut the fuck up sonybro.

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Games are made to be fun, not realistic

I'll print out the game map for the next open world game I play and see if it works by just using that. Recs for something that might work? Skyrim and similar is out unless I print one with all locations found, I guess, and even then I'll have to deal with the compass

There is nothing wrong with a map. What is wrong is that the map shows you the entire game world instead of slowly being black and as you travel you unlock new areas that show up. Also fuck fast travel and fuck precise locations.

>Game map is unreliable and incomplete

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>runescape
that has a map too.

>map

Meant world size.

when it was actually relevant there wasn't an in-game map besides the minimap, so you had to figure out where you were based on your environment and the .jpg world map on the website

I'm fine with games that do both old school description and GPS GO HERE TO CONTINUE marker, honestly.

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That's better for 3d than 2d though

Best part of the game hands down. Maps done right as well.

Try Wurmonline, word of warning, it is not only grindy but also best played while semi-distracted.

>cavemen post on Yea Forums

what a shit opinion, when you could be focusing your critique on quest markers and minimaps

Same. The fun for me comes from so many factors beyond maps and markers that they're not really an issue.

Miasmata's way of having to triangulate landmarks to draw the map was fun.

I heard you like maps, motherfucker.

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What's the smiley face at the top for?

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is that a man with 3 peckers?

The KC:D map is the most SOUL map in any video game

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Old poeple as just as retarded as young poeple so the zoomer arguement sucks

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nice, what is this from? reminds me of morrowind

fpbp

Dark Souls series

And everyone who explored a large area of any map used a map mod or hell, even web-based maps. It might not have been officially been in the game but everyone sure as fuck did use them.

They're a good way to ruin your experience

>Not marking your zones with highly distinct landmarks
Yeah man I fucking love deserts

>hurr making my brain think takes me out of the flow I'm a brainlet durr

Thief's exploration makes my tummy tingle.

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I'm poor, so I'm an explorer like the old times

>Asked to give example of open world game not having a map
>"A good one"

Thats not an example you fucking shiteating retard

A map is nice as long is a map and not real time radar that babysit you

Depends on the game though

muh dick, it's so good. I remember marking off every room I had been in, making my own notes, moving through things very methodically. The maps could get very overwhelming and still do, but using that method makes things a lot easier, lowering the difficulty a bit so the loot obvjective doesn't require you to go through every little nook and cranny also made it a lot more enjoyable for me

One of the best levels in any game. I had the luck to go into it blind.

Pathologic, a good example of a game world that makes you become familiar with it, as there are many dead ends and walls not drawn in the map. First time you play it's hard not to look at it every five minutes, but the layout quickly sticks and you'll be running from death clouds often enough to memorize everything.

>Pathologic
been meaning to get around to it, but now that the second one is out I'm wondering if I should just go straight to that one since it's pobably less janky

I like maps when they start closed, and you're the one opening them.
Something like tibia did.

>pobably less janky
haha we all have dreams