Aye, what we need are more open world games where the point is really more to explore the world and it’s details, kind of like you’re reading a book. The purpose of carrying weapons is more to defend yourself from things that might try to kill you along the way as you explore, rather than purposefully going out to seek combat. And perhaps most quests aren’t even combat related, but rather just ways to see interesting storylines unfold and reveal things about life in this world.
Elden Ring Succeeds by Ignoring 20 Years of Open-World Design
61–70 of 172 posts
Re: Elden Ring Succeeds by Ignoring 20 Years of Open-World Design
#62"When it comes to open-world games, I’ve never liked the “fakeness” of the open-world and why games like Skyrim, Horizon, the Assassin’s Creeds, and so on, didn’t interest me." Skyrim and AC are milestones in open-world design around 2010. Sort of mind-blowing if you played them at their initial release. Horizon, though not being top, also has its own merit. I wonder how can an author comment on open world design whe…
Horizon Forbidden West feels overly polished. Like they brought in the best people to improve things but the end result is like eating 12 courses of the same perfectly prepared chicken breast. It’s good but feels like it’s missing something the guest had. Its story isn’t bad, you feel urgency and care about the characters. There’s powerful moments. It checks the boxes. But this gives the game a dramatically different…
HZD overwhelmingly felt like belonging to the same "fake open world" trope as described by the author to me though. Apart from the enemy types and combat mechanics it's really hard to distinguish it from your run-of-the-mill AC game - it has the same feel of repititive missions scattered across the world as a distraction from the main storyline. Rather, AC at least tries to make its characters look lively and have individual traits. HZD's forced dialogues with its excessively lifeless and mechanical characters are abhorrent and were a huge deterrent for me against completing the game.
Re: Elden Ring Succeeds by Ignoring 20 Years of Open-World Design
#63Just a phenomenal game. IMO, all the From Games are great, but none of them really matched up to the original Dark Souls... until now. I've literally played this every day since it came out, I have over 150 hours, and I still haven't beat it. And still I'm discovering cool new areas, items, and lore. The amount of times I've gotten to a new area and just gone "what in the actual fuck" is too many to count, it's just…
I'm not a FromSoft aficionado and have only played Bloodborne for about 10 hours, which I enjoyed but probably would never finish. I've followed all the Souls games and now ER, have watched many hours of gameplay, and I honestly don't get the appeal and cult-like following around them. I can appreciate the detailed environments and characters, the deep lore, RPG aspects, and probably the best combat mechanics and hit…
Tons of people liked World of Warcraft in a cult way too, Some people just like grinding.
Re: Elden Ring Succeeds by Ignoring 20 Years of Open-World Design
#64I used to love video games in 2010. I loved Skyrim and counterstrike. And in the last 4 years or so I have just stopped liking them. It just seems so boring. Online games are just a contest of who’s willing to sink the most time or money into oblivion. Single player games boil down to the story/writing so why not just read a book or watch a movie? And even then, why bother with a fictional story when I can read some non-fiction which is much more interesting?
Re: Elden Ring Succeeds by Ignoring 20 Years of Open-World Design
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just want to point out that although BOTW is perhaps the most recent example of a widely lauded (though rightly criticized as well) expansive open world, it is in no way the only or even the primary inspiration that Elden Ring draws on. Yes, it has crafting, dungeons and long vistas. But in that sense, Skyrim is equally valid. Heck, even GTA games fill most of those criteria. And if you're going for sheer quality o…
It's not about the open world dimension, it's dropping the player into a world with little to no training. Skyrim, GTA, and RDR2 all share the same "Main Mission" mechanic that helps keep players centered on overall story progression while leaving room for side quests and exploration. This "go there, do this, go there" cycle doesn't exist in BOTW or Elden Ring.
A game that doesn’t fit this mold yet is highly entertaining is Valheim. I haven’t dome a full review of why it’s so entertaining, but I guess it combines Open world with minecraft-esque elements in a rich mythological environment.
Re: Elden Ring Succeeds by Ignoring 20 Years of Open-World Design
#66Just a phenomenal game. IMO, all the From Games are great, but none of them really matched up to the original Dark Souls... until now. I've literally played this every day since it came out, I have over 150 hours, and I still haven't beat it. And still I'm discovering cool new areas, items, and lore. The amount of times I've gotten to a new area and just gone "what in the actual fuck" is too many to count, it's just…
I'm not a FromSoft aficionado and have only played Bloodborne for about 10 hours, which I enjoyed but probably would never finish. I've followed all the Souls games and now ER, have watched many hours of gameplay, and I honestly don't get the appeal and cult-like following around them. I can appreciate the detailed environments and characters, the deep lore, RPG aspects, and probably the best combat mechanics and hit…
I honestly don't get the appeal and cult-like following around them.
The basic formula is nothing special really: take any action-adventure game, give regular enemy mobs 5x the HP, 20X for bosses. Crank up enemy damage so that player dies in 3 hits, 4 tops. Boom, you've got a Souls game.
Lots of mechanics are very out of place for a modern game. Enemies just follow their very limited waypoints until you get into their aggro range, then chase using what is very outdated pathfinding: they won't climb trees or get to you if they're not in almost a straight line of sight. Often they'll stay in a walking animation as soon as finding an obstacle. Ladders seem to be an exepetion, though.
Combat AI is very old-timey too. Enemies have 2, 3 animations that they alternate. And they are very rigid: they'll perform their fixed animations through obstacles -clipping through-, like columns or trees, trying to get to the player in a straight line of sight.
I don't think it's fair to call it an open "world" either. A world almost entirely populated by barebone AIs that exist solely to patrol their 2 waypoint routes waiting to attack the player and respawn after resting at a checkpoint makes sense as a "world". Reminds of early 2000s MMOs, specially Lineage II.
Only the player character is actually doing stuff. Everything else just sits and waits.
It's like the game doesn't even pretend not to be a game. In that I think it's somwhere in the oposite of something like Assasin's Creed that tries to explain its videogameness away, where the assasin gameplay is explained as what happens when your character relieves their ancestor's memories.
But the Soulsbourne games scatch a particular itch...
the general sin of melee action games is how unchallenging the combat is. Most of the time feels like swinging a weightless sword with a baseball bat animation much too fast. Or shooting arrows with a bow will be like a machine gun for toothpicks. Show the game to the non-initiated and the first thing they'll mention is how it takes a long time to attack. Also one of the first games with shield mechanics. RPG games before basically slaped a +25% defence! and called it a day.
Re: Elden Ring Succeeds by Ignoring 20 Years of Open-World Design
#67I used to love video games in 2010. I loved Skyrim and counterstrike. And in the last 4 years or so I have just stopped liking them. It just seems so boring. Online games are just a contest of who’s willing to sink the most time or money into oblivion. Single player games boil down to the story/writing so why not just read a book or watch a movie? And even then, why bother with a fictional story when I can read some…
Only game I play mostly these days is flight simulator. I guess it is a different type of gaming, but I agree with you. I have lost interest in most normal Games as well.
Re: Elden Ring Succeeds by Ignoring 20 Years of Open-World Design
#68The commentary around organic learning reminds me of The Outer Wilds. Imho it’s an even more extreme case of what the author is getting at here: (very mild spoilers follow) there are no stats or levels in The Outer Wilds; there are no upgrades (mild spoiler because I spent like 75% of the game thinking I’d get some sort of item to help me deal with various obstacles eventually, but nope). The game randomly picks a pl…
I read the article and ctrl+f'd Outer Wilds straight away. It's an extreme case indeed, the game does very little hand-holding, while being tremendously complex and interconnected. The only thing that unlocks parts of the game is what you learn from it, and those details and mechanics are what enable to progress.
The downside is that it has very little replay value (you can beat the game within 5min if you already did before), but the path to get there is difficult, engaging, and extremely rewarding.
It's difficult to describe Outer Wilds, but I'd put it as an "open-world Portal", only it has numerous Portal-like quicks in itself.
Re: Elden Ring Succeeds by Ignoring 20 Years of Open-World Design
#69One con of open world is that it's so big they fill it with junk to do to not bore the player.
But most of that gets boring fast.
Re: Elden Ring Succeeds by Ignoring 20 Years of Open-World Design
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Both games are centered on exploration more than the main quest. You're thrown into a world without instructions, you don't know who you are or what you're doing here. There is just a world to explore and have a fun adventure in. While quite different of course, they have basically the same goal: you first have to get lost in order to find your way. The fun begins when you explore and stumble across things by mistake…
Eh. The original Zelda is vaguely non linear. But there are several sequential dependencies for dungeons. Once you’re done with the first 3 it’s pretty darn linear for things like the ladder and the bow and what not. And that game has a progression curve that makes it fairly punishing to do things out of order for normal players. I would say that game forces you to be lost whereas botw really allows you to enjoy expl…
I don't remember that at all, but I do definitely remember the Dueling Peaks, which were visible as soon as you finished the tutorial (and were in the direction you had to go to continue the main quest): https://zelda.fandom.com/wiki/Dueling_Peaks