“I’m full of crucial information you can’t get anywhere else.”
October 31, 2017 4:07 PM Subscribe
Ignorance really is bliss: Video games are better when they tell us less [Digital Trends] “Communication is one of the biggest challenges of video game design. How much information do players need before they go where you want them to go? Looking back, the games we think of as “retro” were often vague in telegraphing what players should do. In the modern era, the pendulum has swung the other way, and now many developers seem to err on the side of caution, guiding players through even large, open-ended experiences. But it doesn’t have to be that way. While it is important to make sure gamers can find out what to do and where to go at any given moment, those mechanics increasingly come at the expense of discovery, diluting some of the greatest joys to be found in exploring virtual worlds. Fortunately, in the last few months, we’ve seen a wave of games experimenting with ways to look past the clutter of in-game UI, using everything from photo-modes to minimalist maps, to put their games worlds’ in the spotlight.”
• Video Game Mini-Maps Might Finally Be Going Away [Kotaku]
• Video Game Mini-Maps Might Finally Be Going Away [Kotaku]
“Mini-maps are bad. They distract from the game you’re playing and frequently offer information that you don’t even need. They draw your eyes away from the world you’re exploring and, in the words of fellow anti-mini-map-crusader Mark Brown, encourage players to “follow the little dotted line.” They are a relic of a bygone era, when video game worlds may not have been easy enough to navigate without them. Let this be a sign, and let other game developers follow Ubisoft and Guerrilla’s lead. May video game mini-maps slowly fade from the mainstream, eventually remembered as a crutch we used to use back when open game-worlds were still relatively new and no one was sure how best to explore them. Let us enter a new age of mini-map-free video games with our eyes fixed on the horizon and not on the corner of the screen.”• Who needs a HUD? Metro: Last Light and the return to realism [ArsTechnica]
“The trade-offs to make a game HUD-free won’t work for everything. A HUD-free MMO would be nearly impossible, as would a tactical shooter without a tactical display. There’s simply too much information that needs to be conveyed to the player at a moment’s notice in these genres. But as technology progresses, we’ll likely see more of the action and less of the HUD distractions. Just look at the re-release of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for 3DS. Everything that once cluttered the screen now resides on the system’s ancillary display, leaving the main view free and clear. Prokhorov said he’d rather not make predictions about the future of interface design because the pace of technology makes any attempt at it pointless. That said, he’s sure the continued development of player interfaces, including new controllers, will make HUD removal easier. “We could have made Last Light totally HUDless, but we didn’t have quite enough time for that,” he said.”• HUD-free Gameplay Changes The Game For The Better [Now Loading]
“We count on the HUD to do a number of things—It provides information that we need about our character's status but it also gives us information about characters that populate the game world as well as information about the missions we are meant to complete. It's not super easy to imagine a world without it, but there are certainly some developers with games that are already there. What does that world look like? Without the HUD, the line between your game and the story of the game world becomes less distinct. There is an element of fear in this—life without hand-holding reinvigorates both first- and third-person gaming in a few important ways. [...] In these games and others, the presence of the HUD is directly related to the game's difficulty—without it, some games might seem quite difficult.”• 6 examples of UI design that every game developer should study [Gamasutra]
“Sometimes the most elegant solution to creating a great HUD is to eliminate it entirely, according to Stanislav Costiuc, a game designer at Ubisoft (but who doesn't work on Assassin's Creed). “I really want to mention the first Assassin's Creed, not because of what it does with its HUD, but because it's a game that is much better with HUD off, as it clearly was designed with no HUD in mind originally and the experience is absolutely different.” Peeling the HUD off of a game like Assassin’s Creed, with its open world assassinations and massive, lovingly rendered environments,, provides a level of immersion that’s not possible with constant reminders that you’re playing a simulation (or, in Assassin’s Creed case, a simulation of a simulation). The purity of presenting the action without a HUD as intermediary connects players to characters more directly and makes those characters feel less like clusters of code.”• HUD Design: A Good HUD Is Hard To Find [Game Rant]
“Many nuances of game development go unappreciated by players out of necessity, but good HUD design is one of the most easily ignored. We use and interact with heads-up displays constantly, so a good HUD design is one that is largely invisible—we find the things with need naturally rather than having to search for them. Bad HUD design, on the other hand, sticks out. We remember when we can’t find the minimap or our health bars are too small, too big, or entirely nonexistent, or when the screen is cluttered with useless information, blocking our view of the game itself. So what goes into designing a proper HUD? It’s a mix of anticipating user needs, maximizing user experience, and doing so in an aesthetically pleasing manner without obstructing the crucial view of the game. It’s a pretty tough balance to achieve, and even some good games struggle with HUD design.”
I find that removing the HUD in games like Metro or Outlast make me forget that I'm playing a game and really brings the story into the forefront. You sort of lose yourself in your character and the environment.
I'm not constantly being reminded that I have some tower near by that I need to climb or there's a side-mission quest that needs solving. For sure, in some games that is necessary and useful but not ALL games need this.
posted by Fizz at 4:27 PM on October 31, 2017 [3 favorites]
I'm not constantly being reminded that I have some tower near by that I need to climb or there's a side-mission quest that needs solving. For sure, in some games that is necessary and useful but not ALL games need this.
posted by Fizz at 4:27 PM on October 31, 2017 [3 favorites]
I was just having a conversation with a friend about this and some good implementation in Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.
While it still has a majority of classic UI elements, its implementation of "mission GPS" (I guess? I don't know the actual term), akin to the waypoints in Skyrim, is very interesting, and I like it a lot.
The "hint button" is bound to G (on PC keyboard anyway), and if you press it, the game will show you a waypoint for your next destination. Naturally, you don't get any HUD elements pointing you where to go, and I like both that it is referred to as what it is, a hint, and that by default it is off, but is also simple to use if you are a gamer who is genuinely lost. If you are more prone to enjoy exploring, its as simple as not pressing the button and finding your own way.
I think more implementations of this sort of thing, where accessing the information is easy, if you are truly lost, is really important because it always defaults to the player exploring the world on their own, and then choosing to get a hint, if they need it. It's a great example of the best of both worlds while getting out of the way of the player by making it simple and effective.
Obviously, this implementation is not perfect for every game, but it immediately got me thinking about a cross between Morrowind and Skyrim, where you can read physical directions, written on paper, and find your way in that tradtional, Morrowind type fashion, but also have the option to use a waypoint akin to Skyrim if you really need it.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is another game where they got the UI right by not really having any and focusing on the experience for the gamer, and its pretty easy to pick up and figure out (for me it was anyway, not meaning to speak for everyone), but allowed you to experiment a lot with how you approached battles when you're first learning how to control Senua.
Anyway, I think that's the real issue/mission with gaming UI.
Getting out of the way of the player while simultaneously allowing the player to grasp the mechanics of gameplay and move to fun gameplay more quickly. (Valve was reportedly methodical about trying to make the game fun and engaging at the beginning while simultaneously teaching you the core mechanics when they made Portal 2.)
However, as was pointed out, Dark Souls also helped spawn a group of gamers who take pride in learning complex, arcane systems without a lot of in-game explanation of how any of it works.
posted by deadaluspark at 4:50 PM on October 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
While it still has a majority of classic UI elements, its implementation of "mission GPS" (I guess? I don't know the actual term), akin to the waypoints in Skyrim, is very interesting, and I like it a lot.
The "hint button" is bound to G (on PC keyboard anyway), and if you press it, the game will show you a waypoint for your next destination. Naturally, you don't get any HUD elements pointing you where to go, and I like both that it is referred to as what it is, a hint, and that by default it is off, but is also simple to use if you are a gamer who is genuinely lost. If you are more prone to enjoy exploring, its as simple as not pressing the button and finding your own way.
I think more implementations of this sort of thing, where accessing the information is easy, if you are truly lost, is really important because it always defaults to the player exploring the world on their own, and then choosing to get a hint, if they need it. It's a great example of the best of both worlds while getting out of the way of the player by making it simple and effective.
Obviously, this implementation is not perfect for every game, but it immediately got me thinking about a cross between Morrowind and Skyrim, where you can read physical directions, written on paper, and find your way in that tradtional, Morrowind type fashion, but also have the option to use a waypoint akin to Skyrim if you really need it.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is another game where they got the UI right by not really having any and focusing on the experience for the gamer, and its pretty easy to pick up and figure out (for me it was anyway, not meaning to speak for everyone), but allowed you to experiment a lot with how you approached battles when you're first learning how to control Senua.
Anyway, I think that's the real issue/mission with gaming UI.
Getting out of the way of the player while simultaneously allowing the player to grasp the mechanics of gameplay and move to fun gameplay more quickly. (Valve was reportedly methodical about trying to make the game fun and engaging at the beginning while simultaneously teaching you the core mechanics when they made Portal 2.)
However, as was pointed out, Dark Souls also helped spawn a group of gamers who take pride in learning complex, arcane systems without a lot of in-game explanation of how any of it works.
posted by deadaluspark at 4:50 PM on October 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
May video game mini-maps slowly fade from the mainstream, eventually remembered as a crutch we used to use back when open game-worlds were still relatively new and no one was sure how best to explore them.
Translation: Let's ramp up the learning curve and try to make sure anyone who hasn't played this type of game since early childhood won't excel at them. Let's arrange the UI so new players are likely to do so poorly in their initial attempts that they give up entirely. That way, we can continue to claim that "gamers" are an elite, talented group, rather than mostly white dudes who've never had to concentrate on anything else long enough to miss a few shifts of the industry.
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I get the idea of reducing unnecessary clutter and info you don't need to have right on top. I don't like the assumption that everyone's definition of "clutter" includes the same things. I'm annoyed at the growing body of games with the apparent attitude, "why should we make a tutorial? Someone'll have a let's play up by the first weekend after release," and I consider this another one of those decisions: "Let's not bother with explanations; the good players will figure it out as they go along."
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 4:55 PM on October 31, 2017 [19 favorites]
Translation: Let's ramp up the learning curve and try to make sure anyone who hasn't played this type of game since early childhood won't excel at them. Let's arrange the UI so new players are likely to do so poorly in their initial attempts that they give up entirely. That way, we can continue to claim that "gamers" are an elite, talented group, rather than mostly white dudes who've never had to concentrate on anything else long enough to miss a few shifts of the industry.
---
I get the idea of reducing unnecessary clutter and info you don't need to have right on top. I don't like the assumption that everyone's definition of "clutter" includes the same things. I'm annoyed at the growing body of games with the apparent attitude, "why should we make a tutorial? Someone'll have a let's play up by the first weekend after release," and I consider this another one of those decisions: "Let's not bother with explanations; the good players will figure it out as they go along."
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 4:55 PM on October 31, 2017 [19 favorites]
"Let's not bother with explanations; the good players will figure it out as they go along."
What I'd truly love is if this phenomenon fueled a games movement that rejected high learning curve / high-dexterity play and embraced a way of gamemaking that means you don't need tutorials or mini-maps. Where the mechanics are designed to require minimal information-flow, and where immersion and sense-of-wonder are prioritised. I'm not sure The Death Of The Mini-Map will be what gets us there, because gaming is terrible forever, but I do like to dream.
posted by halation at 5:03 PM on October 31, 2017 [11 favorites]
What I'd truly love is if this phenomenon fueled a games movement that rejected high learning curve / high-dexterity play and embraced a way of gamemaking that means you don't need tutorials or mini-maps. Where the mechanics are designed to require minimal information-flow, and where immersion and sense-of-wonder are prioritised. I'm not sure The Death Of The Mini-Map will be what gets us there, because gaming is terrible forever, but I do like to dream.
posted by halation at 5:03 PM on October 31, 2017 [11 favorites]
"Let's not bother with explanations; the good players will figure it out as they go along."
Let me attempt to state this thought without sounding like I'm saying "git gud," because that is in no way what I am trying to say.
I want to sympathize with this position, because I don't like the idea that people can be denied the ability to play a game because of the controls. There are plenty of people with physical disabilities who have to use alternate control schemes to play a lot of common games, and making even more complex and weird control schemes can be very limiting to them in their ability to play a game they want to play.
However, that being said, it's hard for me to actually sympathize with it because personally the whole reason I enjoy playing games is because I enjoy getting good at systems and feeling accomplished. I fully well know that's not the reason everyone plays games. My girlfriend loves the Walking Dead games, and those are a type of game that focuses on story and less on skill, and I love that, because I love a well crafted story, and they were the games that really got her into gaming, because of their simplicity, and she continued getting better at more and more games afterward, growing her skills over time. I think it's great that people can enjoy whatever type of gaming experience they want, and it certainly feels, with the advent and success of titles like Life is Strange that there is big market for this type of game and others that do not demand to be an "elite gamer" to enjoy the experience.
And yet, at the same time, those same games can open up some people to gaming as a hobby, in a way they might not have thought they could previously, and then in turn they can get excited about developing their skills and playing other, more complex games. Perhaps, even ones without straightforward UI and that they might have to do some Wiki research on.
Also, side note, Life is Strange had really great UI, all "hand drawn" style stuff, loved it. It was in your face and not as subdued and it worked really well, because it fit the aesthetic of the game.
posted by deadaluspark at 5:15 PM on October 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
Let me attempt to state this thought without sounding like I'm saying "git gud," because that is in no way what I am trying to say.
I want to sympathize with this position, because I don't like the idea that people can be denied the ability to play a game because of the controls. There are plenty of people with physical disabilities who have to use alternate control schemes to play a lot of common games, and making even more complex and weird control schemes can be very limiting to them in their ability to play a game they want to play.
However, that being said, it's hard for me to actually sympathize with it because personally the whole reason I enjoy playing games is because I enjoy getting good at systems and feeling accomplished. I fully well know that's not the reason everyone plays games. My girlfriend loves the Walking Dead games, and those are a type of game that focuses on story and less on skill, and I love that, because I love a well crafted story, and they were the games that really got her into gaming, because of their simplicity, and she continued getting better at more and more games afterward, growing her skills over time. I think it's great that people can enjoy whatever type of gaming experience they want, and it certainly feels, with the advent and success of titles like Life is Strange that there is big market for this type of game and others that do not demand to be an "elite gamer" to enjoy the experience.
And yet, at the same time, those same games can open up some people to gaming as a hobby, in a way they might not have thought they could previously, and then in turn they can get excited about developing their skills and playing other, more complex games. Perhaps, even ones without straightforward UI and that they might have to do some Wiki research on.
Also, side note, Life is Strange had really great UI, all "hand drawn" style stuff, loved it. It was in your face and not as subdued and it worked really well, because it fit the aesthetic of the game.
posted by deadaluspark at 5:15 PM on October 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is another game where they got the UI right by not really having any and focusing on the experience for the gamer, and its pretty easy to pick up and figure out (for me it was anyway, not meaning to speak for everyone), but allowed you to experiment a lot with how you approached battles when you're first learning how to control Senua.
I'm glad you brought this example up. It's wonderful the way they allow sound to work as your HUD and to help inform how you should play the game or move forward.
It's an example of how the HUD can be modified or adjusted to suit the type of game that is being created rather than just plastering a standard HUD on a game that maybe doesn't need one. What might work in a FPS or a open world RPG might not work for all games.
I wish that game developers/designers had more freedom to experiment in the way that the developers of Senua's Sacrifice did.
posted by Fizz at 5:16 PM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
I'm glad you brought this example up. It's wonderful the way they allow sound to work as your HUD and to help inform how you should play the game or move forward.
It's an example of how the HUD can be modified or adjusted to suit the type of game that is being created rather than just plastering a standard HUD on a game that maybe doesn't need one. What might work in a FPS or a open world RPG might not work for all games.
I wish that game developers/designers had more freedom to experiment in the way that the developers of Senua's Sacrifice did.
posted by Fizz at 5:16 PM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
Also, random thought about leftover "classic" UI in the new Wolftenstein.
~~~POTENTIAL VERY EARLY GAME SPOILERS AHEAD~~~
Like all Wolfenstein games, the game has a difficulty setting, and true to classic Wolfensteins, there is the "Can I play, daddy?" showing the main character dressed like a baby, which of course is the "easy" setting.
Considering the game opens with some gruesome scenes involving Billy's father, with him assaulting his son, insulting him and his weakness, and making this character of his father out to be evil and having negative connotations in the story, how does it follow that they would keep that same toxic masculinity the story is trying to depict as awful by keeping this "classic" difficulty setting, the game itself insinuating that the player is a weak baby if they don't "git gud," much like Billy's own father does to him.
It's just... kind of antithetical to what seems to be the themes beginning to be explored right at the beginning of game, you know? So why not just drop it? Because we have to please the some same toxic men who grew up with this game and didn't associate it with anything other than mindless violence and they'll cry "feminism is ruining gaming!" or some other stupid shit if it's removed? (Apparently, since we've got fucking nazi's complaining about representation for fucks sake...)
Just, seriously, what's the point of keeping it at all anymore if the series has taken a more thoughtful turn (which it has, to an extent.)?
posted by deadaluspark at 5:30 PM on October 31, 2017 [3 favorites]
~~~POTENTIAL VERY EARLY GAME SPOILERS AHEAD~~~
Like all Wolfenstein games, the game has a difficulty setting, and true to classic Wolfensteins, there is the "Can I play, daddy?" showing the main character dressed like a baby, which of course is the "easy" setting.
Considering the game opens with some gruesome scenes involving Billy's father, with him assaulting his son, insulting him and his weakness, and making this character of his father out to be evil and having negative connotations in the story, how does it follow that they would keep that same toxic masculinity the story is trying to depict as awful by keeping this "classic" difficulty setting, the game itself insinuating that the player is a weak baby if they don't "git gud," much like Billy's own father does to him.
It's just... kind of antithetical to what seems to be the themes beginning to be explored right at the beginning of game, you know? So why not just drop it? Because we have to please the some same toxic men who grew up with this game and didn't associate it with anything other than mindless violence and they'll cry "feminism is ruining gaming!" or some other stupid shit if it's removed? (Apparently, since we've got fucking nazi's complaining about representation for fucks sake...)
Just, seriously, what's the point of keeping it at all anymore if the series has taken a more thoughtful turn (which it has, to an extent.)?
posted by deadaluspark at 5:30 PM on October 31, 2017 [3 favorites]
they can get excited about developing their skills and playing other, more complex games. Perhaps, even ones without straightforward UI and that they might have to do some Wiki research on.
I don't mind, "this game is just not for beginner gamers." Happy to see all sorts of play styles supported, and that means some games are just not going to mesh with some players, and it's often better for everyone if that's acknowledged in the design stage.
I do not like, "no official documentation is provided; players can help each other figure out how things work, or they can get lucky on their own, or they can just flounder at it." I'd love for "no documentation/tutorial" to mean "the game starts in a way that teaches you the controls, the backstory, the options - you'l learn those as you go." But far too often, I've found it means, "the controls will make perfect sense to you if you've already got a few hundred hours' experience playing similar games."
"Hardcore" games aren't the only culprits here; I do point-and-click adventures and have been frustrated at the mechanics on some of the mini-puzzles, which I later discovered are some standard type that's become common in mobile app games, so the designers assumed that nobody would need to be told how to move things around. That, or they thought it would be fun to have your first dozen clicks result in a big red X and a loud buzzing sound while you try to figure out which highlighted vs which shaded figures are clickable.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 5:35 PM on October 31, 2017 [3 favorites]
I don't mind, "this game is just not for beginner gamers." Happy to see all sorts of play styles supported, and that means some games are just not going to mesh with some players, and it's often better for everyone if that's acknowledged in the design stage.
I do not like, "no official documentation is provided; players can help each other figure out how things work, or they can get lucky on their own, or they can just flounder at it." I'd love for "no documentation/tutorial" to mean "the game starts in a way that teaches you the controls, the backstory, the options - you'l learn those as you go." But far too often, I've found it means, "the controls will make perfect sense to you if you've already got a few hundred hours' experience playing similar games."
"Hardcore" games aren't the only culprits here; I do point-and-click adventures and have been frustrated at the mechanics on some of the mini-puzzles, which I later discovered are some standard type that's become common in mobile app games, so the designers assumed that nobody would need to be told how to move things around. That, or they thought it would be fun to have your first dozen clicks result in a big red X and a loud buzzing sound while you try to figure out which highlighted vs which shaded figures are clickable.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 5:35 PM on October 31, 2017 [3 favorites]
But far too often, I've found it means, "the controls will make perfect sense to you if you've already got a few hundred hours' experience playing similar games."
I have a similar conversation every time my friends try to get me to play DOTA 2, and how you have play numerous tutorial matches before you can even hook up with friends and start playing, and that how even after they've been basically playing no other games at all for years and they go on and on about how that's just how much time you have to put in to learn how it all works and I'm like...
Fuck.
All of that.
So much.
There's stuff to do in the world and I'm not so damn obsessive that I want to learn to play the in's and out's of an insanely complex game that will basically take over my life.
Same goes for EVE Online. Yikes.
So yeah, I get what you're saying now, and 100% agree.
posted by deadaluspark at 5:42 PM on October 31, 2017 [5 favorites]
I have a similar conversation every time my friends try to get me to play DOTA 2, and how you have play numerous tutorial matches before you can even hook up with friends and start playing, and that how even after they've been basically playing no other games at all for years and they go on and on about how that's just how much time you have to put in to learn how it all works and I'm like...
Fuck.
All of that.
So much.
There's stuff to do in the world and I'm not so damn obsessive that I want to learn to play the in's and out's of an insanely complex game that will basically take over my life.
Same goes for EVE Online. Yikes.
So yeah, I get what you're saying now, and 100% agree.
posted by deadaluspark at 5:42 PM on October 31, 2017 [5 favorites]
Mini-maps are bad.Oh, certainly. What I enjoy most about playing Minecraft is having a debug screen of what appears to be random gibberish to the uninitiated displaying my current world position open at all nearly all times while I look at a piece of paper that has a list of coordinates I've previously recorded that mark the locations of my mines, crop farms, tree farms, mob farms, slime farms, horse stables etc. etc. That's how we old skoolers git gud at navigating nearly infinite randomly generated worlds that we don't want to muddy up with lines of torches pointing at locations thousands of blocks away.
posted by xyzzy at 5:53 PM on October 31, 2017 [9 favorites]
As so often, this is one of those things that varies hugely from game to game (and player to player, but that's harder to manage). Honestly, a lot of why I play Ubisoft games is purely for the satisfaction of clearing icons off of the map. If you're going to cram your game full of little minigames, distractions, sidequests, and collectibles, that's exactly what you're encouraging, and I think it's not really that much to ask for a minimap to keep all that straight. It was especially true in the Assassins Creed games set in the colonial/pirate period, because a lot of the scenery was extremely interchangeable islands, fields, 18th century towns, etc., that were pretty but blurred together by midgame. There's a limit to how much immersion I can get out of sailing around a bonkers map of the St. Lawrence Valley (and also Mount Vernon somehow) trying to get from Albany to a fictional fishing village with an intentionally generic name.
For something that's more focused and trying to keep the player totally immersed, sure, pare the HUD way down, although as someone who played and enjoyed Far Cry 2, that also meant that I spent roughly 2/3 of my playtime with the in-game map up, because I wanted to actually do the stuff they were asking me to do and navigating the world correctly is essential to that.
posted by Copronymus at 5:54 PM on October 31, 2017 [5 favorites]
For something that's more focused and trying to keep the player totally immersed, sure, pare the HUD way down, although as someone who played and enjoyed Far Cry 2, that also meant that I spent roughly 2/3 of my playtime with the in-game map up, because I wanted to actually do the stuff they were asking me to do and navigating the world correctly is essential to that.
posted by Copronymus at 5:54 PM on October 31, 2017 [5 favorites]
Let me talk a bit about Hollow Knight's map, because I love that game and its map a whole lot. Hollow Knight is a "Metroidvania," or a 2D exploration-oriented action/platformer. The standard for the genre since Super Metroid is to have a detailed map screen that's filled in automatically as you explore the world, with markers for points of interest. This is necessary for helping you navigate the sprawl of those games, but it comes at a cost that I hadn't noticed until I played Hollow Knight: it's impossible to get lost with a map that always shows you where you are.
Hollow Knight's world is split into interconnected regions, as is typical for the genre. In each region you can find a traveling mapmaker, usually in some nook not too far from the entrance, with his location hinted at by the trail of discarded paper he leaves behind. Until you find the mapmaker and buy a copy of his map, you just don't have a map for that region. Even then, the map you buy is terribly incomplete, and you don't fill it in instantly as you explore. Only when you reach a bench, the game's save point, are any new rooms you've found added to the map. Going through a new area in Hollow Knight really feels like venturing into unknown territory, because it denies you the usual anchor of a constantly-updating map. That game has a lot of intense platforming, huge bosses, and charming characters, but the feeling that stuck with me the most is falling down into a dark web of tunnels and having no idea how to get out or even where I am, and the relief when I finally stumble onto a bench.
posted by skymt at 6:12 PM on October 31, 2017 [10 favorites]
Hollow Knight's world is split into interconnected regions, as is typical for the genre. In each region you can find a traveling mapmaker, usually in some nook not too far from the entrance, with his location hinted at by the trail of discarded paper he leaves behind. Until you find the mapmaker and buy a copy of his map, you just don't have a map for that region. Even then, the map you buy is terribly incomplete, and you don't fill it in instantly as you explore. Only when you reach a bench, the game's save point, are any new rooms you've found added to the map. Going through a new area in Hollow Knight really feels like venturing into unknown territory, because it denies you the usual anchor of a constantly-updating map. That game has a lot of intense platforming, huge bosses, and charming characters, but the feeling that stuck with me the most is falling down into a dark web of tunnels and having no idea how to get out or even where I am, and the relief when I finally stumble onto a bench.
posted by skymt at 6:12 PM on October 31, 2017 [10 favorites]
Minimaps are to me what guns were to Charleston Heston, cold dead hands (no jokes please), so I'm skeptical about removing them, especially since I get lost easily, both in games and in life.
posted by Beholder at 6:12 PM on October 31, 2017 [8 favorites]
posted by Beholder at 6:12 PM on October 31, 2017 [8 favorites]
I spent my first hour playing Deus Ex:MD in getting the UI and interface to not be an active impediment to immersion. And yet the game, despite all its flashing and pulsing UI sections clamoring for your attention, does a terrible job of opening the systems up for you.
Often times it seems like developers add all this crap because they don't have confidence that a player will grasp the systems by moving through the actual 3D space of the game. If you don't think they will, there's probably something wrong with how your systems and space are interacting.
posted by selfnoise at 6:39 PM on October 31, 2017
Often times it seems like developers add all this crap because they don't have confidence that a player will grasp the systems by moving through the actual 3D space of the game. If you don't think they will, there's probably something wrong with how your systems and space are interacting.
posted by selfnoise at 6:39 PM on October 31, 2017
Translation: Let's ramp up the learning curve and try to make sure anyone who hasn't played this type of game since early childhood won't excel at them. Let's arrange the UI so new players are likely to do so poorly in their initial attempts that they give up entirely. That way, we can continue to claim that "gamers" are an elite, talented group, rather than mostly white dudes who've never had to concentrate on anything else long enough to miss a few shifts of the industry.
You know I don't think that's what that article is trying to say - at all, really. But I also think it's significantly overestimating how good the average design team is at... designing an alternative, and underestimating how much players' navigational ability varies.
posted by atoxyl at 6:39 PM on October 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
You know I don't think that's what that article is trying to say - at all, really. But I also think it's significantly overestimating how good the average design team is at... designing an alternative, and underestimating how much players' navigational ability varies.
posted by atoxyl at 6:39 PM on October 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
My favorite is games that have maps (ideally ones that you have to discover partway into an area--like metroid prime or doom) but as the game progresses, the maps become subverted in some way. Like, you get a 2D map for an area that is super-complicated in the third dimention, or a 3D map for an area with lots of transporters/teleporters so that, while your immediate area becomes clear, your route to the goal isn't. I find that this is particularly effective in sci-fi/space and horror games (and best in sci-fi-space-horror games) and works well for storytelling and mood. It's as if everything is nice and rational, but then you find your crutches are being devoured by termites and you're sinking in quicksand. Or maybe it's just that it smoothes out the learning curve, giving you a useful map while you figure out the controls/mechanics, then making you rely on your wits more and more.
posted by sexyrobot at 6:43 PM on October 31, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by sexyrobot at 6:43 PM on October 31, 2017 [5 favorites]
I won't speak to minimaps generally, because I think it depends on the game, but I will say I don't miss its absence in AC:Origins. You can still pull up the map and put a waypoint wherever you want, and you have an eagle that scouts out and highlight enemies in the immediate area as well as a sonar ping thing that highlights lootable objects nearby. Which pretty much covers all the things a minimap would be used for, I think. But not every game is going to have an eagle drone or a lootable objects pinger, so I don't know how generalizable that is.
posted by juv3nal at 6:52 PM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by juv3nal at 6:52 PM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
Also I like a bunch of HUD stuff in games that require a lot quick reflexes...like shoot-em-ups and racing games (WipeOut even has multiple HUDs you can unlock) as I find it really enhances the sense of ACTION! And in RPGs and similar (like Diablo 3) nothing says 'you're getting better at this' than more and more and bigger and bigger numbers popping out of the bad guys in addition to all the spells and explosions. I get that it's maybe 'clutter' in service of 'hectic' but when you're in the mood for an adrenaline rush, a little (or a lot) of information overload goes a long way.
posted by sexyrobot at 6:59 PM on October 31, 2017
posted by sexyrobot at 6:59 PM on October 31, 2017
ac origins is amazing but i really really miss the minimap. i'm on my 23rd side quest because i can't fucking find anything without stopping every 30 seconds to check the world map, and then i never actually get anywhere because once i see how far i am from my objective i just go punch a crocodile to death and beat up a bronze deliveryman.
they've tried to plan for this exact problem by giving you a pop up that notifies you that the main quest is happening nearby and you should go look for it but like. a fucking pop up? that's the solution they chose? why this
posted by poffin boffin at 7:04 PM on October 31, 2017 [6 favorites]
they've tried to plan for this exact problem by giving you a pop up that notifies you that the main quest is happening nearby and you should go look for it but like. a fucking pop up? that's the solution they chose? why this
posted by poffin boffin at 7:04 PM on October 31, 2017 [6 favorites]
“Mini-maps are bad. They distract from the game you’re playing and frequently offer information that you don’t even need. "
Wooow go to hell, kotaku. Minimaps offer super-useful information, your current orientation in the larger game world, at a glance. Having to stop and open a map to figure out where you are is what I expect from backpacking, not video games. Especially in open-world games, a minimap is essential for figuring out your immediate surroundings vs. what's on screen.
posted by drinkyclown at 8:07 PM on October 31, 2017 [9 favorites]
Wooow go to hell, kotaku. Minimaps offer super-useful information, your current orientation in the larger game world, at a glance. Having to stop and open a map to figure out where you are is what I expect from backpacking, not video games. Especially in open-world games, a minimap is essential for figuring out your immediate surroundings vs. what's on screen.
posted by drinkyclown at 8:07 PM on October 31, 2017 [9 favorites]
Fumita Ueda's games Ico and Shadow of the Colossus were both partly experiments in HUD replacement. One replaces your health meter with a companion, the other replaces map and compass with a magic sword, but is too afraid to do without its grip-meter. Mostly they could have done with even less auxiliary information; the recently re-released Colossus' primary weaknesses are all about its lack of trust in the player. The script is wordy and over-explanatory, the aforementioned grip-meter distracting, the way the camera always creeps back behind the player no matter where you left it, and the heavy handed last hour where it really hammers on its central metaphor. It trusts the player in so many ways, but can't go all the way with it and stumbles.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:13 PM on October 31, 2017
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:13 PM on October 31, 2017
“Mini-maps are bad. They distract from the game you’re playing and frequently offer information that you don’t even need. "
I find it pretty ironic for someone to simultaneously argue for more difficulty in games and whine that mini maps make it hard for them to focus.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 8:15 PM on October 31, 2017
I find it pretty ironic for someone to simultaneously argue for more difficulty in games and whine that mini maps make it hard for them to focus.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 8:15 PM on October 31, 2017
I find it pretty ironic for someone to simultaneously argue for more difficulty in games and whine that mini maps make it hard for them to focus.
Why do you find this ironic? A challenging game isn't challenging because it distracts you.
posted by destructive cactus at 8:43 PM on October 31, 2017 [3 favorites]
Why do you find this ironic? A challenging game isn't challenging because it distracts you.
posted by destructive cactus at 8:43 PM on October 31, 2017 [3 favorites]
Minimaps are to me what guns were to Charleston Heston, cold dead hands (no jokes please), so I'm skeptical about removing them, especially since I get lost easily, both in games and in life.
“Mini-maps are bad. They distract from the game you’re playing and frequently offer information that you don’t even need. "
Wooow go to hell, kotaku. Minimaps offer super-useful information, your current orientation in the larger game world, at a glance. Having to stop and open a map to figure out where you are is what I expect from backpacking, not video games. Especially in open-world games, a minimap is essential for figuring out your immediate surroundings vs. what's on screen.
Seriously this. SO this. At best, you could describe me as directionally impaired. AT BEST. Without minimaps I am useless. In Planetside, my guild banned me from getting to drive tanks because I would get lost so often on the way to a battle. Now, you want to make them more subtle, like the breadcrumb tool in the later Dead Spaces or the "chrono footprints" in Singularity, or even the green lights in Rage or Doom 2016, go ahead. Unless you want to watch Sam bumble around in circles for hours, get mad, rage quit, rage uninstall, and rage go around telling everyone and their siblings how much your game sucks.
posted by Samizdata at 8:56 PM on October 31, 2017 [10 favorites]
“Mini-maps are bad. They distract from the game you’re playing and frequently offer information that you don’t even need. "
Wooow go to hell, kotaku. Minimaps offer super-useful information, your current orientation in the larger game world, at a glance. Having to stop and open a map to figure out where you are is what I expect from backpacking, not video games. Especially in open-world games, a minimap is essential for figuring out your immediate surroundings vs. what's on screen.
Seriously this. SO this. At best, you could describe me as directionally impaired. AT BEST. Without minimaps I am useless. In Planetside, my guild banned me from getting to drive tanks because I would get lost so often on the way to a battle. Now, you want to make them more subtle, like the breadcrumb tool in the later Dead Spaces or the "chrono footprints" in Singularity, or even the green lights in Rage or Doom 2016, go ahead. Unless you want to watch Sam bumble around in circles for hours, get mad, rage quit, rage uninstall, and rage go around telling everyone and their siblings how much your game sucks.
posted by Samizdata at 8:56 PM on October 31, 2017 [10 favorites]
In Planetside, my guild banned me from getting to drive tanks because I would get lost so often on the way to a battle.In EverQuest, I got to every. single. dungeon. by following an elaborate system of notes that contained landmarks. Right, so, to get to Dragon Necropolis, follow the zone edge from Siren's Grotto to the third rock, turn left 90 degrees, then keep going until you see the big scar in the land. Eventually I learned the loc system (which rotated the cardinal directions clockwise by 90 degrees, those ASSHOLES) and bound /loc to my run forward key so that I could always see my location in a zone. Yeah, that was SO MUCH BETTER than a little circle with some compass points and a map on it I could refer to while I navigate game worlds.
(I have a visual processing disorder that makes me hopelessly lost without GPS or maps IRL. I get lost going to places I've been to dozens of times. These problems extend to navigating video game worlds.)
posted by xyzzy at 9:12 PM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
Nier:Automata has a neat idea: HUD elements are things you can buy or sell. Don't want a mini-map? Sell it! And there are HUD elements that aren't default that you can buy.
posted by zompist at 9:25 PM on October 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by zompist at 9:25 PM on October 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
i never actually get anywhere because once i see how far i am from my objective i just go punch a crocodile to death
If you have not played Zero Dawn you need to play Zero Dawn because instead of crocodiles there are robot crocodiles and instead of just fighting them you can shoot them with corruption arrows and make them fight each other.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:37 PM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
If you have not played Zero Dawn you need to play Zero Dawn because instead of crocodiles there are robot crocodiles and instead of just fighting them you can shoot them with corruption arrows and make them fight each other.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:37 PM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
Those who need minimaps would HATE Miasmata, a game in which you must create your own map by triangulating landmarks yourself, while dying of a mysterious fever, and being hunted by a ... creature.
posted by destructive cactus at 9:41 PM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by destructive cactus at 9:41 PM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
A lot of the old games had a fatal flaw: if we did something out of order, the game was unwinnable, and if we were lucky, we F5'd hours ago. It must be insanely difficult to keep the narrative intact if some sort of direction isn't provided. I think Dark Souls is a bad example. The narrative is not very satisfying at all.
posted by Brocktoon at 12:11 AM on November 1, 2017
posted by Brocktoon at 12:11 AM on November 1, 2017
Several games I've played in the last couple of years have had a more friendly approach to scaling the difficulty levels, compared to the baby jokes quoted upstream. The easiest were labelled something to the effect of "I'm just here for the story".
posted by Harald74 at 1:07 AM on November 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Harald74 at 1:07 AM on November 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
I find that I'm in camp "no minimaps". I've found that after I disabled the minimaps in both GTA:SA and GTA IV I felt that the world was a lot more immersive, and actually quite easy to navigate after a while.
That being said, I'm not opposed to people enjoying the game they've bought any way they damn well please.
posted by Harald74 at 1:15 AM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
That being said, I'm not opposed to people enjoying the game they've bought any way they damn well please.
posted by Harald74 at 1:15 AM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
Skyrim doesn't have minimaps. It has a compass at the top of the screen, though. By this point I think I can navigate the whole game map pretty much by memory, BTW. Which is handy, as Bethesda is going to keep re-releasing it for any and all new platforms until the end of time.
posted by Harald74 at 1:17 AM on November 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Harald74 at 1:17 AM on November 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
I think we have to thank Dark Souls and its runaway success in spite breaking all the rules for this trend of respecting the player's intelligence. Praise the sun!
I haven't played it for a few years now, but I still remember exactly how Lordran is laid out and where each region fits in. If I tried I think I could draw a pretty good map from memory (well, not Blighttown). I don't think I can say that for any other reasonably large game I've ever played (maybe Bloodborne?). The lack of any kind of in-game map forced me to mentally engage with the game's world in a way that I'd never do if I could just glance at the corner of the screen to orient myself instantly, and it was awesome.
It's not just a matter of taking any old game and removing the minimap, because the world has to have a logic to its structure and enough environmental cues (terrain, distant landmarks, changing styles of decorations or vegetation etc.) for the spatial awareness part of the player's brain to latch onto. There are some games that don't have this, and need a map. But I really like the ones that can work without it.
Another example: Dishonored (the first one). I don't think it has a map, but it does have quite intrusive objective markers. At some point in the first few missions I found the option that turns them off, and it made the game so much better. I went from following the markers without thinking very much about what I found along the way to exploring each meticulously designed environment so that I could understand enough of its structure to work out where to go next.
Counter-example: Rain World, where the regions are huge and made up of many little sub-regions that don't join together in an obviously sensible way. It needs its map.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 3:08 AM on November 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
I haven't played it for a few years now, but I still remember exactly how Lordran is laid out and where each region fits in. If I tried I think I could draw a pretty good map from memory (well, not Blighttown). I don't think I can say that for any other reasonably large game I've ever played (maybe Bloodborne?). The lack of any kind of in-game map forced me to mentally engage with the game's world in a way that I'd never do if I could just glance at the corner of the screen to orient myself instantly, and it was awesome.
It's not just a matter of taking any old game and removing the minimap, because the world has to have a logic to its structure and enough environmental cues (terrain, distant landmarks, changing styles of decorations or vegetation etc.) for the spatial awareness part of the player's brain to latch onto. There are some games that don't have this, and need a map. But I really like the ones that can work without it.
Another example: Dishonored (the first one). I don't think it has a map, but it does have quite intrusive objective markers. At some point in the first few missions I found the option that turns them off, and it made the game so much better. I went from following the markers without thinking very much about what I found along the way to exploring each meticulously designed environment so that I could understand enough of its structure to work out where to go next.
Counter-example: Rain World, where the regions are huge and made up of many little sub-regions that don't join together in an obviously sensible way. It needs its map.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 3:08 AM on November 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
I found Witcher 3 impossible to navigate without minimap but it was the first game I played that let me switch off the entire UI and the difference was amazing. (ctrl-f "Witcher" not found in articles)
posted by yoHighness at 3:45 AM on November 1, 2017
posted by yoHighness at 3:45 AM on November 1, 2017
This is one of those thing where I think we need to be careful of assuming that everybody else has the same set of RL abilities we do when we talk about what games should and shouldn't help with. If you want to make a game that is ABOUT your ability to retain a mental map, then great, have at it, I just won't play it. But if you don't mean for that to be a fundamental part of your mechanics, it shouldn't be a skill players have to have to play.
Do fundamentally think, though, that at this point in the AAA budget, like, configuring your UI a bit should not be beyond you. If you're spending tons of money just getting your shadows to render just so, the ability to turn off or change the size/position of UI elements seems so trivial. A lot of non-indie games these days have interfaces that seem to have had surprisingly little thought put into them.
posted by Sequence at 4:19 AM on November 1, 2017 [4 favorites]
Do fundamentally think, though, that at this point in the AAA budget, like, configuring your UI a bit should not be beyond you. If you're spending tons of money just getting your shadows to render just so, the ability to turn off or change the size/position of UI elements seems so trivial. A lot of non-indie games these days have interfaces that seem to have had surprisingly little thought put into them.
posted by Sequence at 4:19 AM on November 1, 2017 [4 favorites]
Ha, speaking of Bloodborne, I just remembered the eldritch horror of this.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 4:41 AM on November 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 4:41 AM on November 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
Like Skyrim, the 3D Fallout games use a compass and two maps, a world map and a nearly useless indoor map. I think it’s a good compromise, because it’s nice to know I’m headed in the right direction, though you still need to be paying attention to the world in front of you. The best part, though, is when you’re heading to your objective and an icon pops up on your compass showing some point of interest nearby, and you can’t help but go explore it (or at least check it out so it activates as a fast travel point). I don’t think I ever get to where I’m going without five detours to clear dungeons or raider hideouts or what have you.
posted by ejs at 7:55 AM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by ejs at 7:55 AM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
I have a friend who somehow just does not notice the additional information given to him on screens. If a message pops up telling him his objective, he just doesn't see it. He played Assassin's Creed Black Flag for two hours before realizing there even was a mini map. So let's say that it's entirely possible but oh my god is it excrutiating to watch. He just roams around and walks obliviously past points of interest.
posted by tofu_crouton at 8:03 AM on November 1, 2017
posted by tofu_crouton at 8:03 AM on November 1, 2017
A challenging game isn't challenging because it distracts you.
Why not? When we each picked a life skill to excel at and judge others for not having, mine was the ability to handle a ton of incoming information. These people have picked " a sense of direction and a lifetime of games experience", which is far less useful.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 9:37 AM on November 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
Why not? When we each picked a life skill to excel at and judge others for not having, mine was the ability to handle a ton of incoming information. These people have picked " a sense of direction and a lifetime of games experience", which is far less useful.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 9:37 AM on November 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
Removing information does seem mostly about enforcing the same level of immersion that comes naturally to people that haven't gotten to the point of exploiting every system in a game for maximum efficiency. It's frustrating to watch someone play a game and seem to ignore information, but I think it's more that they're treating the world as a more real and valuable source of information - actually looking to see if a guard can see them instead of listening to non diegetic audio cues for example.
Given the option, I would probably hide a minimap to get that sense of navigating a natural space back. But then if I played the game through again, I might turn it back on because I also enjoy the experience of puzzling out the best way to work something.
posted by lucidium at 9:39 AM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
Given the option, I would probably hide a minimap to get that sense of navigating a natural space back. But then if I played the game through again, I might turn it back on because I also enjoy the experience of puzzling out the best way to work something.
posted by lucidium at 9:39 AM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
One thing I’ve found interesting about Horizon Zero Dawn is that there are two HUDs in the game: the one the player has, which floats on the plane of your screen, and the one Aloy has, which is projected into the 3D space of the world so as to be flat relative to her gaze. Want to scan a robot dinosaur for weaknesses? Make Aloy pop up her HUD. Put her cursor on the glowing skeleton of the dinosaur. A little card pops up with some data; different parts start glowing, and keep on glowing for a while after Aloy turns off her HUD.
The player's HUD, meanwhile, can be configured to fade out. There’s about twenty or thirty elements, each of which can be set to always be there, never show up, or appear when something changes. It’s really nice and I hope to see this become a standard.
But, yeah, two HUDs. One for the player. One for the player character. It’s interesting.
posted by egypturnash at 10:21 AM on November 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
The player's HUD, meanwhile, can be configured to fade out. There’s about twenty or thirty elements, each of which can be set to always be there, never show up, or appear when something changes. It’s really nice and I hope to see this become a standard.
But, yeah, two HUDs. One for the player. One for the player character. It’s interesting.
posted by egypturnash at 10:21 AM on November 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
Mini maps, complex levels, non-disorientated players: choose two. There's a comic floating around comparing the maps of the original Doom to Half Life and then to one of the modern shooters. They get more and more linear as you get more modern. Mass Effect 3 did not have a mini-map. But that was because, despite all the twists and turns, it was essentially one long corridor. Say what you will about Mass Effect Andromeda, but they went to having more interesting maps that could be tackled from different directions. They went back to having a navigational compass and mini map. Because you need that to navigate a complex space that you don't know well.
Yes, many games, including Hellblade, which I adored, got rid of mini-maps. That's because they simplified the level design down to a linear path. (Hellblade had some areas that felt like they were built intentionally to confuse, which was actually pretty cool, as the being nervous about where I was when hunting for something (and being hunted) actually created an enjoyable tension). I haven't played an Ass Creed game in years, not since Brotherhood, so I can't speak to those open world games. But if you're going to be open world and have a complex area, I want a mini-map. I was thinking of picking up Ass Creed: Origins, but given the lack of mini-map, it's probably off my list.
Giving people the ability to disable various bits of the HUD is a really good idea. That way those who have perfect spacial reasoning can skip the mini-map and the rest of us can have it.
posted by Hactar at 10:54 AM on November 1, 2017
Yes, many games, including Hellblade, which I adored, got rid of mini-maps. That's because they simplified the level design down to a linear path. (Hellblade had some areas that felt like they were built intentionally to confuse, which was actually pretty cool, as the being nervous about where I was when hunting for something (and being hunted) actually created an enjoyable tension). I haven't played an Ass Creed game in years, not since Brotherhood, so I can't speak to those open world games. But if you're going to be open world and have a complex area, I want a mini-map. I was thinking of picking up Ass Creed: Origins, but given the lack of mini-map, it's probably off my list.
Giving people the ability to disable various bits of the HUD is a really good idea. That way those who have perfect spacial reasoning can skip the mini-map and the rest of us can have it.
posted by Hactar at 10:54 AM on November 1, 2017
origins has a sort of... idk how to describe it? it's a horizontal line at the top of the screen that shows cardinal directions and locations/items of interest, or things/places you've set as your destination, things you haven't officially "discovered" yet, etc. it's taken me a while to get used to it, and i'm currently sort of able to use it, but it's an irritant on the level of a sneeze that won't come out.
the main annoyance for me is when i'm in an underground tomb, the compass line thing is totally worthless for finding your way out, and your eagle can't really help other than letting you drop a marker at the exit. thus far none of them have been super complex like that one godawful wolf tomb in brotherhood but it's still vexing.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:54 AM on November 1, 2017
the main annoyance for me is when i'm in an underground tomb, the compass line thing is totally worthless for finding your way out, and your eagle can't really help other than letting you drop a marker at the exit. thus far none of them have been super complex like that one godawful wolf tomb in brotherhood but it's still vexing.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:54 AM on November 1, 2017
Say what you will about Mass Effect Andromeda, but they went to having more interesting maps that could be tackled from different directions. They went back to having a navigational compass and mini map. Because you need that to navigate a complex space that you don't know well.
It really is sad how bad ME:A got dragged, because yeah, the facial animations and shit were god-awful, but did nobody notice the beautiful vistas on every planet, the thoughtfully designed landscapes that were actually amazing traversable in the new Mako (I don't remember what the new one is called...).
The planet design and level design was all around pretty top-notch compared to Mass Effect 2/3 and put it way above the scope and detail of the original Mass Effect, succeeding in planet-scale world building in a way ME1 didn't manage simply because of limitations at the time.
Conceptually, it was about the best kind of "reboot" to a series that you could get, if people could have gotten over themselves and enjoyed the game instead of deciding it meant it was "literally unplayable" because you could make the main character walk funny and some characters had bad animations. If you don't see that as some sort of surrealist comedy, well, I don't know, and I think you must not actually know how to have fun in games, because making my characters look ugly, act dumb, and do ridiculous things is fucking fun.
All around, a real bummer there likely won't actually be any more, because while it had its flaws, it brought back so much from the original Mass Effect that made it so good and made 2 and 3 feel like hollow shells in comparison, and then expanded on what made it good and made it better by adding things like environmental variables.
posted by deadaluspark at 12:06 PM on November 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
It really is sad how bad ME:A got dragged, because yeah, the facial animations and shit were god-awful, but did nobody notice the beautiful vistas on every planet, the thoughtfully designed landscapes that were actually amazing traversable in the new Mako (I don't remember what the new one is called...).
The planet design and level design was all around pretty top-notch compared to Mass Effect 2/3 and put it way above the scope and detail of the original Mass Effect, succeeding in planet-scale world building in a way ME1 didn't manage simply because of limitations at the time.
Conceptually, it was about the best kind of "reboot" to a series that you could get, if people could have gotten over themselves and enjoyed the game instead of deciding it meant it was "literally unplayable" because you could make the main character walk funny and some characters had bad animations. If you don't see that as some sort of surrealist comedy, well, I don't know, and I think you must not actually know how to have fun in games, because making my characters look ugly, act dumb, and do ridiculous things is fucking fun.
All around, a real bummer there likely won't actually be any more, because while it had its flaws, it brought back so much from the original Mass Effect that made it so good and made 2 and 3 feel like hollow shells in comparison, and then expanded on what made it good and made it better by adding things like environmental variables.
posted by deadaluspark at 12:06 PM on November 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
Nier:Automata has a neat idea: HUD elements are things you can buy or sell. Don't want a mini-map? Sell it! And there are HUD elements that aren't default that you can buy.
Nier is really interesting in this way. I'm glad you brought it up. You're an android and you have chip-sets that you can equip. But like any form of media, you have limitations and space requirements.
So you get to choose what is important to you. Do you want to see a bar above the enemy you're battling that displays their health? You can choose to equip that chip-set. Do you want to get rid of the mini-map/HUD so that you have more room to increase the damage attack of one of your weapons. Equip those chip-sets instead.
It's super customization and quite a brilliant way of providing the player lots of freedom to play their way.
posted by Fizz at 12:13 PM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
Nier is really interesting in this way. I'm glad you brought it up. You're an android and you have chip-sets that you can equip. But like any form of media, you have limitations and space requirements.
So you get to choose what is important to you. Do you want to see a bar above the enemy you're battling that displays their health? You can choose to equip that chip-set. Do you want to get rid of the mini-map/HUD so that you have more room to increase the damage attack of one of your weapons. Equip those chip-sets instead.
It's super customization and quite a brilliant way of providing the player lots of freedom to play their way.
posted by Fizz at 12:13 PM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
I find that I'm in camp "no minimaps". I've found that after I disabled the minimaps in both GTA:SA and GTA IV I felt that the world was a lot more immersive, and actually quite easy to navigate after a while.
And that right there is the solution: make the mini-map optional. Some players need them and some do not, but it should be the player's decision. Removing the mini-map altogether and not allowing the player to choose if they need it or not is a shitty thing to do, as several of the comments in this thread clearly demonstrate. I really hate it when designers don't allow players to decide for themselves what they need.
(My other pet peeve are games which have no manual save. I stopped playing autosave-only games entirely when I was taking care of my father because I was being called away from whatever game I was playing a lot and always losing progress. Let the played decide when they need to save and quit a game, FFS.)
posted by homunculus at 1:13 PM on November 1, 2017 [7 favorites]
And that right there is the solution: make the mini-map optional. Some players need them and some do not, but it should be the player's decision. Removing the mini-map altogether and not allowing the player to choose if they need it or not is a shitty thing to do, as several of the comments in this thread clearly demonstrate. I really hate it when designers don't allow players to decide for themselves what they need.
(My other pet peeve are games which have no manual save. I stopped playing autosave-only games entirely when I was taking care of my father because I was being called away from whatever game I was playing a lot and always losing progress. Let the played decide when they need to save and quit a game, FFS.)
posted by homunculus at 1:13 PM on November 1, 2017 [7 favorites]
Two screens, can easily look at the map if you want or disregard it if not.
The intentional mapping of Etrian Odyssey is pretty great but tied to touchscreen devices (and measured pace).
posted by ersatz at 2:21 PM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
The intentional mapping of Etrian Odyssey is pretty great but tied to touchscreen devices (and measured pace).
posted by ersatz at 2:21 PM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
Let the played decide when they need to save and quit a game, FFS.
Er, 'let the playeR decide' that is. Though I suppose if I've spent $40 - $60 on a game that won't let me save when I want to, then I have been played.
posted by homunculus at 3:41 PM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
Er, 'let the playeR decide' that is. Though I suppose if I've spent $40 - $60 on a game that won't let me save when I want to, then I have been played.
posted by homunculus at 3:41 PM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
The intentional mapping of Etrian Odyssey is pretty great but tied to touchscreen devices (and measured pace).
I LOVE the Etrian Odyssey series for this very reason. It brings the table-top style of RPG into the modern era. Mapping your dungeon and labeling your short cuts and treasure chests and various demons. It's super fun. You just reminded me that I have a half-finished game to go back and play through.
posted by Fizz at 3:48 PM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
I LOVE the Etrian Odyssey series for this very reason. It brings the table-top style of RPG into the modern era. Mapping your dungeon and labeling your short cuts and treasure chests and various demons. It's super fun. You just reminded me that I have a half-finished game to go back and play through.
posted by Fizz at 3:48 PM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
All around, a real bummer there likely won't actually be any more, because while it had its flaws, it brought back so much from the original Mass Effect that made it so good and made 2 and 3 feel like hollow shells in comparison, and then expanded on what made it good and made it better by adding things like environmental variables.
I mean...have you been following video games for any length of time? Where every other goddamn title is a reboot or a prequel or a sequel. There will almost certainly be more, just not soon is all. (which is not to say that it will keep the things you like about Andromeda, because they may well take the wrong lessons from the poor reception and swerve hard in another direction).
posted by juv3nal at 5:48 PM on November 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
I mean...have you been following video games for any length of time? Where every other goddamn title is a reboot or a prequel or a sequel. There will almost certainly be more, just not soon is all. (which is not to say that it will keep the things you like about Andromeda, because they may well take the wrong lessons from the poor reception and swerve hard in another direction).
posted by juv3nal at 5:48 PM on November 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
update i don't care about the minimap absence in origins anymore bc your horse can catch fire and run down and set fire to your enemies
posted by poffin boffin at 2:03 AM on November 2, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 2:03 AM on November 2, 2017 [5 favorites]
>Considering the game opens with some gruesome scenes involving Billy's father, with him assaulting his son, insulting him and his weakness, and making this character of his father out to be evil and having negative connotations in the story, how does it follow that they would keep that same toxic masculinity the story is trying to depict as awful by keeping this "classic" difficulty setting, the game itself insinuating that the player is a weak baby if they don't "git gud," much like Billy's own father does to him.
It's just... kind of antithetical to what seems to be the themes beginning to be explored right at the beginning of game, you know? So why not just drop it? Because we have to please the some same toxic men who grew up with this game and didn't associate it with anything other than mindless violence and they'll cry "feminism is ruining gaming!" or some other stupid shit if it's removed? (Apparently, since we've got fucking nazi's complaining about representation for fucks sake...)
Just, seriously, what's the point of keeping it at all anymore if the series has taken a more thoughtful turn (which it has, to an extent.)?
Are you kidding me deaduleus?
You equate an abusive father with the tone of a skilled player mocking a less skilled player? Where did your barometer go so far off. As someone who had actually abusive father ( check my comment history), you are way, way off.
Calling someone a weak baby for being bad at a game is a joke. Like saying senator Mitch McConnell looks like a turtle. I am disgusted on so many levels you could equate normal male ribbing (that is not meant to be taken seriously) with a father that assaults his son. It is truly disgusting.
What's the point of keeping a hard difficulty? Because some of the player base wants a hard difficultly. I'm assuming it's optional like it always is, so why even raise the question of deleting it in our classically liberal society. Just let it be.
Being good at a video game (a very well made video game) feels like driving a ferrari. The precision, timing and memory required can all work together to make a very pleasurable experience and the better you get at a game the more your capacity for challenge will increase.
What you are saying is like telling Jeremy Clarkson to stop driving sportscars because he makes fun of James for being "Captain Slow". It is patently ridiculous.
posted by Submiqent at 7:18 AM on November 2, 2017
It's just... kind of antithetical to what seems to be the themes beginning to be explored right at the beginning of game, you know? So why not just drop it? Because we have to please the some same toxic men who grew up with this game and didn't associate it with anything other than mindless violence and they'll cry "feminism is ruining gaming!" or some other stupid shit if it's removed? (Apparently, since we've got fucking nazi's complaining about representation for fucks sake...)
Just, seriously, what's the point of keeping it at all anymore if the series has taken a more thoughtful turn (which it has, to an extent.)?
Are you kidding me deaduleus?
You equate an abusive father with the tone of a skilled player mocking a less skilled player? Where did your barometer go so far off. As someone who had actually abusive father ( check my comment history), you are way, way off.
Calling someone a weak baby for being bad at a game is a joke. Like saying senator Mitch McConnell looks like a turtle. I am disgusted on so many levels you could equate normal male ribbing (that is not meant to be taken seriously) with a father that assaults his son. It is truly disgusting.
What's the point of keeping a hard difficulty? Because some of the player base wants a hard difficultly. I'm assuming it's optional like it always is, so why even raise the question of deleting it in our classically liberal society. Just let it be.
Being good at a video game (a very well made video game) feels like driving a ferrari. The precision, timing and memory required can all work together to make a very pleasurable experience and the better you get at a game the more your capacity for challenge will increase.
What you are saying is like telling Jeremy Clarkson to stop driving sportscars because he makes fun of James for being "Captain Slow". It is patently ridiculous.
posted by Submiqent at 7:18 AM on November 2, 2017
I am disgusted on so many levels you could equate normal male ribbing (that is not meant to be taken seriously) with a father that assaults his son. It is truly disgusting.
So... all the players are presumed to be male? Or, it's okay for a skilled player to insult and mock someone less skilled, because it wouldn't bother you? (That's pretty much the attitude that keeps me--and my dollars, and my kids' dollars--away from mainstream video games. Why bother picking up a hobby where so many people think casual cruelty is fun?)
What you are saying is like telling Jeremy Clarkson to stop driving sportscars because he makes fun of James for being "Captain Slow".
Jeremy and James have known each other for quite some time; presumably, their level of "animosity," however true or false, is acceptable to both. Jeremy calling *me* "Captain Slow" in a driving tutorial would not be acceptable, nor would it be reasonable to say, "well, you can stick to city streets if you want, and be like Captain Slow, or you can hit the open road and go for some real speed."
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:07 AM on November 2, 2017 [4 favorites]
So... all the players are presumed to be male? Or, it's okay for a skilled player to insult and mock someone less skilled, because it wouldn't bother you? (That's pretty much the attitude that keeps me--and my dollars, and my kids' dollars--away from mainstream video games. Why bother picking up a hobby where so many people think casual cruelty is fun?)
What you are saying is like telling Jeremy Clarkson to stop driving sportscars because he makes fun of James for being "Captain Slow".
Jeremy and James have known each other for quite some time; presumably, their level of "animosity," however true or false, is acceptable to both. Jeremy calling *me* "Captain Slow" in a driving tutorial would not be acceptable, nor would it be reasonable to say, "well, you can stick to city streets if you want, and be like Captain Slow, or you can hit the open road and go for some real speed."
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:07 AM on November 2, 2017 [4 favorites]
I would find it pretty funny if I was playing a game and every now and then Jeremy Clarkson popped up to mock me for playing it poorly (or preferably someone less unpleasant - maybe Stewart Lee, in the same tone he uses to mock Jeremy Clarkson). I'd certainly prefer that to what a modern game is more likely to do, which is to constantly tell me how awesome and heroic I am while silently adjusting the difficulty to make sure I can never fail too badly. Fortunately, the market is big enough for both kinds of games to exist.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 2:28 PM on November 2, 2017
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 2:28 PM on November 2, 2017
Mod note: comment removed - debate is fine but don't make it personal.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:16 PM on November 3, 2017
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:16 PM on November 3, 2017
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posted by rodlymight at 4:18 PM on October 31, 2017 [7 favorites]