Not sure if I want to see this thread locked because it's so embarrassing or left open to see where he goes next. So far he's claimed he can do better than BOTW, SOTN, Skyrim, and probably others I've missed. I haven't played Ori but man it sounds like I'm missing out on the most perfect game experience ever crafted.
I do not agree with perception that he is giving off a "we could have or we did do it better" am I exempt from this same idea just because I'm not a developer? Don't I as a civilian have less stock in criticism because I couldn't ever do better in a million years? The reality about excepting a different perspective. His perspective is about decisions he would or would not have made from someone who actually makes games, I think that is valuable. And by the way he has made it clear he is very positive about this game. Can't we talk about what would make a great game better?
Also Ori is one of the greatest games ever made and I highly recommend it. So I guess that makes me biased for thinking that as well?
You can do that in the OT (like many devs that posted there), and not create a new thread "from a Game Dev's perspective", when you have nothing relevant to add to the discussion.
Again I feel like you are attributing motives that just aren't there. Post shaming is uncalled for, why say where he should or shouldn't post. We have mods for that. And more importantly if no one posted it would fade to obscurity but right now you are posting assuring it remains viable. Also "nothing relevant to add?" seems harsh.
I think it's what that guy from the Ghost Recon Wildlands interview called "minigolf world design" (incidentally, Wildlands isn't really above it, despite the map feeling fairly naturally designed, in terms of geography).
To me it's more of trying to make open world appeal to people who really don't like open world all that much, and it ends up disappointing everyone.
Zelda seems pretty decent in this sense, there's a lot of stuff, but the world is massive enough that elements end up fairly spaced out... i wish it would ease up on the constant spawn of monsters tho.
There are lots of similar terms. There is also the dreaded "Potatoland" syndrome, which Bethesda games suffer from, whereby your epic quest handed to you by a villager is no more than 100m away from the quest giver. If you're in this world, you ask yourself "why didn't the villagers go and do this themselves?"
Additionally, as you noted logical seeming geography is important, and it generally looks pretty bad to jam Biomes against each other with no rhyme and reason.
In one sense I don't think Zelda is attempting the clockwork world that follows logical rules of how civilizations exist in these spaces, where the likes of Witcher 3 or GTA do attempt to model faithfully. However, it is nice that it motions towards this in order to avoid that uncanny feeling like you're not in a world, just an oversized level.
This thread is here to discuss the design (and its issues) of BotW. BotW is an excellent game, but it's just so silly to say that if someone points out some inherent flaw that he perceives, that person thinks he can do it better.
I don't know if I can or can't. I never worked on an open world game and I have 0 interest in doing so. I'm crafting big, handcrafted worlds, that's what I do all day and I think there's some great input in this thread from a lot of folks that I think would be valuable for Nintendo to read. Both posts from TheMink and EatinOlives are awesome and would probably have been interesting discussions to have during development.
So let's please stay level headed and constructive here - It's nice being able to have a nice little fireside chat where we can discuss the ups and downs of a great game that was just released, right? Let's do that
Just because you put smiley faces after everything you say doesn't make it constructive.
Many people have explained why they as players value having some empty spaces in a rich world like that of BotW. You've come back with platitudes about your personal design philosophies and comments about just holding the analog stick in one direction.
Well, I can't really share my empirical evidence, but I've been making games and been testing my designs over the better part of a decade now with lots and lots of folks and within Microsofts User Research Department during Ori's development and after some time you sorta understand what clicks for people and what doesn't. I'd even go as far as saying that there's a certain formula to fun and we just haven't really figured out the formula yet - but it's there. We're all doing things without knowing exactly what the math is in the background, but everything's based on certain rules and your brain lights up when certain conditions apply and doesn't when they don't.
I think it'd be super interesting for people to see how we went about level design, how we tested certain levels with folks, then got some bad comments about them, changed them to be more dense or changed the focus and suddenly those levels were the testers favorites... That's why I'm naturally spotting certain problems we encountered and figured out how to fix when I'm seeing those problems in other games.
My whole job every day is to analyze spaces that aren't fun yet and to fill them up with stuff that people enjoy, so I do often have a bit of a 'been there, done that' attitude when I see issues in games
Well OP listen, I think you had some valid points at first because they seemed reasonable the way you presented them.
Reading more and more of your replies it all boils down to "I know better, have you tried Ori? Did you play Ori? I did this and that, did you play it?".
You know what? I played the first version of Ori on Steam, the trial & error chase/escape sections are frustrating and seriously, you locked the game save once the player had completed it even with things yet to find - and without telling the player? With all your "testing sessions" nobody addressed that was a shitty idea? It completely ruined the experience for me and never went back to the game ever since for this reason.
Just my 2 cents (since you're asking at every other reply you write).
As for the thread, I may understand the game structure is not your cup of tea but saying it's inherently wrong just invalidate your point, though I agree to some extent on some of your complaints about the UI - but I think they're quite trivial and do not detract much from the game experience. I find much more annoying not being able to climb a mountain because it rains, and the solution would have been (and could be with a simple patch) so easy
Just make the player find a set giving Link the ability to climb on a slippery surface, make it gated with the Ruta main quest, problem solved
I don't know if I can or can't. I never worked on an open world game and I have 0 interest in doing so. I'm crafting big, handcrafted worlds, that's what I do all day and I think there's some great input in this thread from a lot of folks that I think would be valuable for Nintendo to read.
Are they worlds? Can I explore the white spaces? The places where that world's characters sleep and eat? Where they maybe teach their children? Farm their crops? Can I go and explore what I see in the background, leaving the forest trail? Or are they 2D levels that you mistake to form a world if only you put connections between them, while the very basic premise of a 2D game is antiquated and obsolete as means of world modeling, reducing the "world" to selected slices, while building an open 3D world would allow you to actually model the rest of the world for the player to explore, if they're so inclined?
It's pretty obvious you neither understand the appeal of open world games nor should attempt to create or improve one, if you look at what the modern 3D open world games do and would rather want to go back to the antiquated ALttP "world", just because you "don't want to push a stick forward for more than a minute".
It would be refreshing if you detached yourself from the presumption that players would feel you've build a good game world, only because you hand crafted every inch of it to be the precise jump and attack sequence of absolute gaming bliss. It's simply one type of game technique that's been done to perfection for about two decades (incidentally, if any game maker out there has, "Nintendo's been there, done that") and has been made obsolete when trying to model a world, as modern technology started to provide the luxury and means of modeling or approaching to model the actual game world, even with its non-gamey details, instead being limited to 2D slices out of it reduced to the game's mere mechanics. Not everybody would want to go back to the SNES era, even if you put a lick of HD paint and orchestral music on it and introduce new game mechanic gimmicks.
So let's please stay level headed and constructive here - It's nice being able to have a nice little fireside chat where we can discuss the ups and downs of a great game that was just released, right? Let's do that
It would be cool if you responded to more posts or added to the conversation then. It doesn't seem like you have much to add beyond your initial post despite all of the great posts made in this thread. You framed this thread as a "complete critique" but were light on the details; continuing to link to posts you already made when people are trying to engage with you more or understand your position in more detail doesn't seem conducive to great conversation.
There has to be more to your perspective on games than just the way you personally make them ... no?
Not to dismiss your criticisms but I dislike your continued use of "handcrafted world" as if the world in BotW is made of copy paste. It's very evident a lot of care was put into the design of the overworld either to create different experiences on enemy camps, offering several ways to climb a same mountain, various paths that lead to the same ending point and more.
Also, I feel you're using way too much 2D design ideas for a 3D open world critique. For example, a "fun per inch" approach makes sense for a 2D game since the player can only see what the screen shows him at any point. There's no first person view or anything that allows you to have a glimpse of what comes next, so if there's no "fun" in the current screen then the player may get bored or disappointed. On the contrary, BotW has the Sheikah Slate that lets you analyze the world from a distance, setting objectives that can be far away. Hence, you don't need every single part of the game filled with content since just looking at the world and choosing a next destination can be considered "fun".
My main gripes with BotW so far come to the "lack" of enemy variety or, more clearly, the abscence of some classic Zelda enemies. I also think some things can get tedious like cooking one thing at a time, upgrading one clothing piece at a time and similar stuff.
Not to dismiss your criticisms but I dislike your continued use of "handcrafted world" as if the world in BotW is made of copy paste. It's very evident a lot of care was put into the design of the overworld either to create different experiences on enemy camps, offering several ways to climb a same mountain, various paths that lead to the same ending point and more.
Also, I feel you're using way too much 2D design ideas for a 3D open world critique. For example, a "fun per inch" approach makes sense for a 2D game since the player can only see what the screen shows him at any point. There's no first person view or anything that allows you to have a glimpse of what comes next, so if there's no "fun" in the current screen then the player may get bored or disappointed. On the contrary, BotW has the Sheikah Slate that lets you analyze the world from a distance, setting objectives that can be far away. Hence, you don't need every single part of the game filled with content since just looking at the world and choosing a next destination can be considered "fun".
My main gripes with BotW so far come to the "lack" of enemy variety or, more clearly, the abscence of some classic Zelda enemies. I also think some things can get tedious like cooking one thing at a time, upgrading one clothing piece at a time and similar stuff.
I really miss the hand from the ceiling and the zombies that freeze you. Those things scared me! I haven't finished the game - 166 hrs with 1 beast, 49 shrines and closing in on 200 seeds. And I've explored only about 3 provinces so far and not 100% on any of those. AND I am not bored. Am I the only one? No.
Hey guys we all need to calm down, I don´t agree with OP´s main premise, but there´s no need to gang on him. We can have a very informative discussion in this thread
This is the kind of discussion I want to be having. As clearly the game is amazing 10/10 blah blah blah...
With that out way I 100% agree with you, I could not have been more disappointed by the
Dragon quest
or about 90% of the games reward system after really getting toward the finish.
The weapons systems only real issue to me is not that it breaks, but that getting a weapon as a reward for something that seemed like it should merit something more permanent cuts hard. And occasionally I open up such chests and throw them away immediately because I don't want a heavy fire sword. Or better yet, there is a Fire Sword in a tree in an obvious location that I'm pretty sure respawns. Also enemies in general give you plenty of crap weapons, so for a weapon to be in a chest in a shrine I'm like "I just got a better weapon fighting the Guardian that was guarding this door..."
And to go along with your concept about subverting expectation and occasionally giving something other than a basic spirit orb, (I love the idea of a permanent strength boost by the way) I think that similar things could have been implemented with unbreakable weapons.
The stage was so set for giving high entry barrier rewards that subvert previously expected mechanical conventions. After using breakable weapons for so long giving a sword that couldn't break would be an incredible gift. Even the
Master Sword
is an incredible missed opportunity. How about leaning more into conditional weapon usage and giving specialized items for each enemy type. Unbreakable Bokoblin killer, Lynel killer, etc.
That's just an idea if they are so set on that concept. It's just to me like, I've already played 30 hours of this game. Why isn't there something SO COOL that you want?
Armor is close and the best reward you can possibly obtain, but even then some armors are essentially useless compared to others. How about permanent environment abilities? The ability to use full berserk in cold areas without items would be an incredible reward.
Adhering so closely to its ruleset in the early game is amazing but because they are early, that is what gives the best opportunity to then break those rules later to give you incredible rewards.
Counter arguments I've herd against this are that you can go anywhere and so they can't lock rewards that are too powerful.
Yes they can they did it with the
Master Sword
.
Put more barriers like that in the game, 50 shrines completed gives you this reward, all divine beasts gives you another.
(by the way weapons are given for divine beasts and it's always like great...)
A tower that can only be climbed with a certain amount of stamina and lock food out for that. IDK there are hundreds of potential barriers that could be implemented for high level equipment.
But more importantly the idea that a barrier would be necessary is absurd because I can just beat the game right away. The only reason you need to be stronger for the final boss is because I want to be. So if the only reason not fight Ganon right away is because I am self motivated to gather strength what would be the harm in higher tier rewards?
I agree with this; there are already permanent rewards in the game like the Master Sword, the Champion´s powers, armors, horses...it would´ve been nice to have something more tied to some significant sidequests like the dragons. The sidequest for the snow and desert boots is a nice example, there could´ve been more like it, like special gloves to climb on wet surfaces, a device to manipulate climate, a special beacon to create your own fast travel points, a book to write down your recipes, a portable cooking pot...Having more of these quests with special rewards would´ve helped in making all feel more special.
I have mixed feelings about setting up barriers though. On one side they´re nice because they give you an objective, just like getting the necessary base health for the MS is, but on the other having many of these may hurt the freedom you have in the game, which IMO, is one it´s strongest assests. It would be like going back to the door-key design of previous Zelda games instead of moving forward on the freedom path BotW has started.
You can do that in the OT (like many devs that posted there), and not create a new thread "from a Game Dev's perspective", when you have nothing relevant to add to the discussion.
This has been my favorite game in years and I've put in over 100 hours already, but I agree with the general sentiments of the OP.
The world could use being about a third to one-half smaller if it isn't going to have more variety in things to do. It's monstrously enormous and time-consuming to traverse for the speed that Link travels and how often you have to stop and go look under a rock (sometimes literally). There are still entire regions I haven't explored and others I've barely explored thoroughly. The alternative to a smaller world would be to make Link run (and climb/glide) faster like the characters in Xenoblade X. Any of these options could be be done without impacting the scope and splendor of the game's vistas.
The dungeons are a big disappointment. It's actually a little shocking how underwhelming they are. From what I have played of the 3D Zeldas and even ALBW (really any past Zelda), these are a major step back. I think the developers were limited by the Divine Beasts' design. I think they knew this, hence why they padded playtime in a particular region with the parts where a character helps you gain entry to the beast. But this doesn't make up for the short and lackluster dungeon itself. Opposite the terrain criticism, I think the beasts then should've been more intricate... and larger if their physical dimensions are the reason the dungeons are so short. The alternative would be to add a traditional dungeon in the area that cleverly intertwines into the beast portion.
Enemy variety isn't the worst thing ever but it is a bit of a letdown. Maybe a half dozen more enemies and variety in the gear enemies wear from region to region (vs simple recoloring) would have been perfect. I agree that the combat challenges are a missed opportunity to get creative.
The Divine Beast boss designs are a huge miss, including the final boss (mini bosses are fine). I don't know what Nintendo was thinking with these generic, deformed sludge mutants. They have no personality and they don't convey any threat outside the room they're housed in. In general, the threat of Calamity Ganon is very passive and doesn't seem to be a pressing matter in this version of Hyrule.
The lack of music initially bugged me but now I feel irritated in the sections where music is blaring (Hyrule Castle)... so I dunno. Some variety in the basic enemy encounter music would be nice. Tired of that one theme all over the world.
I'm hoping for a sequel using the same engine and physics mechanics but with a smaller, more tightly focused game world, new enemies, much better bosses, real dungeons, unique special items/weapons from said dungeons and a bigger focus on story... all without the tutorial crap of past games. I'm basically hoping that BOTW's sequel will be like Ocarina of Time:Majora's Mask.
I agree with the dungeons and enemy variation. The rest of the stuff, not sure I agree with. I can see how the fun per inch philosophy might be relevant for a 2D sidescrolling game or something, but for a game like BotW, I feel like traversing/exploring the world is in and of itself fun. I mean, it's just fun to me to climb a mountain and then glide off of it. Or to surf down some snowy slopes on my shield. I had a lot of fun getting some info on where a photo was taken, and then trying to find it on my own based on what I had heard.
Sure there are many improvements that could be made, but I don't think the world is lacking in fun as is.
Interesting read. ALways enjoy gaming criticism from developer side, rather than gamer or reviewer, who may not share the love, hours, blood, sweat and tears one puts into a game that may sell well or not
honestly you should read through the thread. it started off well enough and the people that disagreed did so respectfully and tried to explain why but more and more the OP would post in a way that stifled discussion and, whether intentionally or not, sought to invalidate the opinions of others and honestly the design decisions of other developers. I think people are just frustrated with the attitude of the OP and the way he/she is going about presenting their opinion, that's all.
honestly you should read through the thread. it started off well enough and the people that disagreed did so respectfully and tried to explain why but more and more the OP would post in a way that stifled discussion and, whether intentionally or not, sought to invalidate the opinions of others and honestly the design decisions of other developers. I think people are just frustrated with the attitude of the OP and the way he/she is going about presenting their opinion, that's all.
"Just imagine LttP in 3D and extrapolate from there!" Good gravy, so many wrong things with that statement, let alone trying to pass that off as an excuse to critique the game, and that's completely aside from the fact that the OP has yet to admit or address the fact that 2D game design is completely different than 3D game design.
Again I feel like you are attributing motives that just aren't there. Post shaming is uncalled for, why say where he should or shouldn't post. We have mods for that. And more importantly if no one posted it would fade to obscurity but right now you are posting assuring it remains viable. Also "nothing relevant to add?" seems harsh.
I don't mind his opinion. He can like or dislike any game he wants.
What I do mind is when you frame your opinion as being better or more insightful because of some credentials you have; when in reality you do not possess those credentials and show complete ignorance of said matter.
I give you an example. I'm a structural engineer. So I go to "NeoCIF (Construction is Fun, believe)" and post a thread: "Complete Big Dig project critique from a structural engineer", and give my opinion on said project. Problem is I've never worked in a highway project or a mega project of any kind, and I have no idea of the scope or anything; because I've only worked in small projects; and I only drove through the finished thing a couple of times. Is my opinion thread worthy? Is my opinion better than the average's persons opinion on the same thing? The answer is a resounding NO btw; I can shove all my titles and CV at your face, but the truth is I have no idea.
This is my problem with the thread.
When OP tells you how all open worlds are made and his proof is some youtube video; or that it's as simple as translating LTTP into 3D and extrapolate (sic), you know he has absolutely no idea what he is talking about. "Hey Capcom, why don't you do Megaman X in 3D and start from it? why didn't you think about that?"
Also, post shaming? is this a new meme? or a new millennial overly sensitive thing? I'm answering the thread with my opinion on it; how dare I do it in a discussion forum?
Maybe if I put a smiley at the end, it will be better. =)
When OP tells you how all open worlds are made and his proof is some youtube video; or that it's as simple as translating LTTP into 3D and extrapolate (sic), you know he has absolutely no idea what he is talking about. "Hey Capcom, why don't you do Megaman X in 3D and start from it? why didn't you think about that?"
The most confusing thing is that the recerence is to a general video on 3D modelling, not to the GDC videos from the actual development team of BotW, where the 2D test model vs 3D result was pretty clearly explained.
When OP tells you how all open worlds are made and his proof is some youtube video; or that it's as simple as translating LTTP into 3D and extrapolate (sic), you know he has absolutely no idea what he is talking about. "Hey Capcom, why don't you do Megaman X in 3D and start from it? why didn't you think about that?"
Neither does it help when there is the "don't want to push stick into one direction for even a minute" complaint, disguised as "what's wrong with open world games - a dev's perspective". What's wrong apparently is that they're open world games in the first place? Sorry, but then there's no helping you. You're not made for open world games and open world games are not made for you. Move on and don't bend over trying to apply the paradigms you're comfortable with to games designed based on incompatible paradigms.
I agree with this; there are already permanent rewards in the game like the Master Sword, the Champion´s powers, armors, horses...it would´ve been nice to have something more tied to some significant sidequests like the dragons. The sidequest for the snow and desert boots is a nice example, there could´ve been more like it, like special gloves to climb on wet surfaces, a device to manipulate climate, a special beacon to create your own fast travel points, a book to write down your recipes, a portable cooking pot...Having more of these quests with special rewards would´ve helped in making all feel more special.
I have mixed feelings about setting up barriers though. On one side they´re nice because they give you an objective, just like getting the necessary base health for the MS is, but on the other having many of these may hurt the freedom you have in the game, which IMO, is one it´s strongest assests. It would be like going back to the door-key design of previous Zelda games instead of moving forward on the freedom path BotW has started.
I think small barriers could have worked. For example, now the Zora Armor is given to you at the middle point of the Zora Main Quest. Imagine if, instead, there was some unclimbable wall somewhere and a dungeon where you get the Armor and the ability to swim on waterfalls from it. That ability isn't indispensable to exploring the game but there could be some particular high areas that need it.
I appreciate the full freedom in BotW but finding a place where you can't progress isn't bad at all. It's cool to see a place, remember that you can't clear it yet and then return later with better upgrades. After all, it's what makes Metroid so fun!
I really disagree with that idea, at best I can imagine that some general formula are more likely to work for a big number of people ( which is kind of what ubisoft seems to think too ).
I think there is many many many formula to fun, something can be fun yet it's opposite can be just as fun, kind of the arcade versus simulation, or even gameplay driven versus story driven.
The same is true when it comes to how an open world should be made, a smaller game world packed with content has it's strength, but so does a bigger world where the "empty" space make the discovery of new things even more special.
The succes of mods like Dayz which probably goes against most people initial idea of fun ( it's not called walking simulators by some for no reason ) kind of show what I mean I think.
I really disagree with that idea, at best I can imagine that some general formula are more likely to work for a big number of people ( which is kind of what ubisoft seems to think too ).
I think there is many many many formula to fun, something can be fun yet it's opposite can be just as fun, kind of the arcade versus simulation, or even gameplay driven versus story driven.
The same is true when it comes to how an open world should be made, a smaller game world packed with content has it's strength, but so does a bigger world where the "empty" space make the discovery of new things even more special.
The succes of mods like Dayz which probably goes against most people initial idea of fun ( it's not called walking simulators by some for no reason ) kind of show what I mean I think.
What I meant was that it'd be interesting if we could actually look at peoples brain activity, put them into various categories and see what kinda level designs work and what doesn't work, where do the pleasure parts really light up and where don't they, etc., that'd be super interesting data to have.
I firmly believe that everything in the world can be explained and if we can't explain it, we just haven't found the answers yet - And why should game design and level design be different? Of course 'different strokes for different folks' is true and all, but compare it to food: If I let you sample two things to eat, one is chocolate and the other is dirt, most people would probably really enjoy the chocolate and really hate eating dirt. The same thing must be true for level design and design in general: You don't want dirt, you want chocolate!
If you look at level designs and you see how they progressed over the course of development, there's definitely always this "Man, this was a bad level, but once we added this, this and that and removed this and made this path work like this instead of that, it became great!" realization, which is why I'm thinking there must be some kind of 'formula to fun', some way of making sure that peoples brains constantly are engaged and the experience is pleasurable.
I firmly believe that everything in the world can be explained and if we can't explain it, we just haven't found the answers yet - And why should game design and level design be different? Of course 'different strokes for different folks' is true and all, but compare it to food: If I let you sample two things to eat, one is chocolate and the other is dirt, most people would probably really enjoy the chocolate and really hate eating dirt. The same thing must be true for level design and design in general: You don't want dirt, you want chocolate!
What I meant was that it'd be interesting if we could actually look at peoples brain activity, put them into various categories and see what kinda level designs work and what doesn't work, where do the pleasure parts really light up and where don't they, etc., that'd be super interesting data to have.
I firmly believe that everything in the world can be explained and if we can't explain it, we just haven't found the answers yet - And why should game design and level design be different? Of course 'different strokes for different folks' is true and all, but compare it to food: If I let you sample two things to eat, one is chocolate and the other is dirt, most people would probably really enjoy the chocolate and really hate eating dirt. The same thing must be true for level design and design in general: You don't want dirt, you want chocolate!
If you look at level designs and you see how they progressed over the course of development, there's definitely always this "Man, this was a bad level, but once we added this, this and that and removed this and made this path work like this instead of that, it became great!" realization, which is why I'm thinking there must be some kind of 'formula to fun', some way of making sure that peoples brains constantly are engaged and the experience is pleasurable.
The better analogy is you have chocolate and caramel. And a steak. If I want something sweet (or an open world) I'll choose between chocolate and caramel (small, dense open world vs large open world with empty spaces). But I might be sick of chocolate, so I'll go with caramel. Or maybe I'm not craving sweets at all and I'll eat that juicy steak (I dunno, a 2d platformer or something).
What you don't get is that people like variety and maybe you detest caramel, and that's fine, but you don't get to say caramel is as bad as dirt because you don't like it.
I firmly believe that everything in the world can be explained and if we can't explain it, we just haven't found the answers yet - And why should game design and level design be different? Of course 'different strokes for different folks' is true and all, but compare it to food: If I let you sample two things to eat, one is chocolate and the other is dirt, most people would probably really enjoy the chocolate and really hate eating dirt. The same thing must be true for level design and design in general: You don't want dirt, you want chocolate!
You cite "different strokes..." but really don't seem to understand it, do you? Otherwise you wouldn't construct an asinine binary analogy. Get that into your head: I know at least two people who find chocolate vomit inducing. What do you call them? Wrong?
Ever considered chocolate and ice cream? Did it ever occur to you, that people may love one and hate the other, love both, hate the combination (chocolate ice cream) but love both individually? Did it ever occur to you that what people find stimulating is entirely individual and rarely ever binary, even though there may be things that most people find great and only some don't?
Seemingly not, otherwise you wouldn't even make the presumption that you're giving people something they may find of more value than a wide open world, if you hand craft every aspect of the world to be some intricately designed playground for your game mechanics. It may bore people to tears or rather let them feel like they're playing some throwback game to more than a decade ago, where the available technology never allowed to progress too far past that type of game instead of actually modelling a believably halfway realisticially sized world. It may make people wish they'd be spending their time playing a game like Minecraft instead, where there's nearly no game design structure whatsoever and they can just fool around to their hearts' content, instead of trotting through what some designer thought was the platforming sequence of the century.
OP if you're still reading this thread I'm curious what your opinion is on the open world of Shadow of the Colossus seeing some of your criticism's of BotW's open world design.
Dirt to chocolate is really not a good analogy. As other have pointed out. That is not what different strokes mean. You are basically saying that there is a formula for the best food, best movie, and best game, that everyone will agree on. Which will never be true.
What I meant was that it'd be interesting if we could actually look at peoples brain activity, put them into various categories and see what kinda level designs work and what doesn't work, where do the pleasure parts really light up and where don't they, etc., that'd be super interesting data to have.
I firmly believe that everything in the world can be explained and if we can't explain it, we just haven't found the answers yet - And why should game design and level design be different? Of course 'different strokes for different folks' is true and all, but compare it to food: If I let you sample two things to eat, one is chocolate and the other is dirt, most people would probably really enjoy the chocolate and really hate eating dirt. The same thing must be true for level design and design in general: You don't want dirt, you want chocolate!
If you look at level designs and you see how they progressed over the course of development, there's definitely always this "Man, this was a bad level, but once we added this, this and that and removed this and made this path work like this instead of that, it became great!" realization, which is why I'm thinking there must be some kind of 'formula to fun', some way of making sure that peoples brains constantly are engaged and the experience is pleasurable.
Good critique. However, I don't agree with your point that if you have to put fast travel in a game it means your world's too large. The presence of fast travel is merely an acknowledgement of different people's tastes and play styles.
Those of us who enjoy the "getting lost exploring" aspect of the game (which I feel is its strongest point in favor) often skip the fast travel and just run or ride around Hyrule, and for people like us, I think the world is a wonderful size... especially considering just how much there is to find and do there. I love that I could spend a month running around the landscape and still not find everything there is to find. I've never, not once, felt that fast travel was necessary for me.
The fast travel is there for people who would rather just A to B the main content. Their preferred style of play is just as valid as mine, and this way we both get what we want.
What I meant was that it'd be interesting if we could actually look at peoples brain activity, put them into various categories and see what kinda level designs work and what doesn't work, where do the pleasure parts really light up and where don't they, etc., that'd be super interesting data to have.
I firmly believe that everything in the world can be explained and if we can't explain it, we just haven't found the answers yet - And why should game design and level design be different? Of course 'different strokes for different folks' is true and all, but compare it to food: If I let you sample two things to eat, one is chocolate and the other is dirt, most people would probably really enjoy the chocolate and really hate eating dirt. The same thing must be true for level design and design in general: You don't want dirt, you want chocolate!
If you look at level designs and you see how they progressed over the course of development, there's definitely always this "Man, this was a bad level, but once we added this, this and that and removed this and made this path work like this instead of that, it became great!" realization, which is why I'm thinking there must be some kind of 'formula to fun', some way of making sure that peoples brains constantly are engaged and the experience is pleasurable.
You cite "different strokes..." but really don't seem to understand it, do you? Otherwise you wouldn't construct an asinine binary analogy. Get that into your head: I know at least two people who find chocolate vomit inducing.
Ever considered chocolate and ice cream? Did it ever occur to you, that people may love one and hate the other, love both, hate the combination (chocolate ice cream) but love both individually? Did it ever occur to you that what people find stimulating is entirely individual and rarely ever binary, even though there may be things that most people find great and only some don't?
Seemingly not, otherwise you wouldn't even make the presumption that you're giving people something they may find of more value than a wide open world, if you hand craft every aspect of the world to be some intricately designed playground for your game mechanics. It may bore people to tears or rather let them feel like they're playing some throwback game to more than a decade ago, where the technique never allowed to progress to far past that type of game instead actually modelling a believably halfway reasticially sized world. It may make people wish they'd be spending their time playing a game like Minecraft instead, where there's nearly no game design structure whatsoever and they can just fool around to their hearts' content, instead of trotting through what some designer thought was the platforming sequnce of the century.
If you look at level designs and you see how they progressed over the course of development, there's definitely always this "Man, this was a bad level, but once we added this, this and that and removed this and made this path work like this instead of that, it became great!" realization, which is why I'm thinking there must be some kind of 'formula to fun', some way of making sure that peoples brains constantly are engaged and the experience is pleasurable.
Nintendo literally did this with the map design of Breath of the Wild. They used mapping software to track where test users went and adapted the environment to the natural behaviour of users so that they were constantly engaged and continually discovering new things. Did you watch the Making Of videos that were mentioned many times in this thread? They might shed some light on the topic for you.
The idea that there's an absolute formula to fun transcending genre and taste assumes that all players play games for the same reasons, which is just a weird angle to come at this from. There's a reason that some people play Animal Crossing and some people play Dwarf Fortress and some people play CS:GO. (And a few people might play all three!) This very thread proves this point because lots of people appreciate the downtime in the game that you're framing as objectively bad.
Is there an absolute formula for the perfect song, the perfect novel, the perfect film, too? Come on.
Here's the direction I would take 3d Zelda games into if I'd be in charge of Nintendo: I'd make the game look exactly like the NES Cover Art and craft a 20-30 hour long game (again, similar to ALTTP) where every single spot in the game, the Overworld, the Dungeons, etc. have been meticulously hand crafted. Every item you'd get in a dungeon or through the Overworld would have to have tons of usecases within those environments and within the core gameplay pillars and you'd constantly find secret little entrances to amazing areas that were hand-crafted for you to enjoy. I'd still make it fairly non-linear, similar to Zelda 1, but keep the Zelda loop and the Zelda magic, every boss would need to be an epic event so that finishing a dungeon would feel insanely satisfying. I'd want to take players on an epic adventure where every second screams gaming bliss and I'd not ever be okay with having spots in the game where I'm doing nothing but holding the analog stick in a direction for a minute.
...and actually, now that the team that made the handheld Zeldas is freed up and the big Zelda games will now probably follow the same BotW formula for the next two decades or so, they might just do something like that. So I hope that's what they'll be doing
Reading through this thread, I don't really understand this hard on you seem to have for the notion of "just make a 3D LTTP!" Just about every Zelda game we've seen since LTTP and BotW have all been 3D translations of the former. They all follow the same structure of Overworld > dungeon >overworld, repeat with the same progress in the dungeon of key/puzzles>dungeon item > boss defeated by item. As some one who's played through LTTP about a month ago before BotW I also don't understand how it's overworld design can be seen as something that BotW should have tried to emulate or serve as an example of something done better.
LTTP's overworld might subscribe to your idea of "fun per inch" but the problem with it is is that the magic, fun, or however you want to put it pretty much goes away after the first run through an area, at least for me. In one screen you might walk by a wall, bomb it and find a cave with rupees in it and then move on but once that cave is discovered that's basically it for that screen. Anytime you need to pass through that area it's just going to be holding the control stick forward from then on because you've already discovered what's in that area. Again, having played LTTP just a few weeks ago, the first part of the game for me was uncovering all the secrets in each area, and then monotonously using the Pegasus boots to get to where I needed to go for the second half. Pretty much holding down the control stick, or in this case the A button, for a minute or two.
How this compares to breath of the wild is that there is no one way to get some where. I've pretty much neglected to use fast travel most of the time because traversing somewhere, even if covering the same ground, more often than not provides a fun and discovery filled trip. Take getting to Kakariko for example. Even if I limit my starting location to in front of the dueling peaks you have the option of climbing one of the mountains, taking the path between them, going around one, maybe just traveling north ignoring them completely, etc. If I want to travel to Death Mountain in Lttp by foot my only option is traveling through a cave at the base of the mountain which isn't going to reveal any new secrets on a repeat trip, thank god for fast travel in that game.
What I meant was that it'd be interesting if we could actually look at peoples brain activity, put them into various categories and see what kinda level designs work and what doesn't work, where do the pleasure parts really light up and where don't they, etc., that'd be super interesting data to have.
I firmly believe that everything in the world can be explained and if we can't explain it, we just haven't found the answers yet - And why should game design and level design be different? Of course 'different strokes for different folks' is true and all, but compare it to food: If I let you sample two things to eat, one is chocolate and the other is dirt, most people would probably really enjoy the chocolate and really hate eating dirt. The same thing must be true for level design and design in general: You don't want dirt, you want chocolate!
If you look at level designs and you see how they progressed over the course of development, there's definitely always this "Man, this was a bad level, but once we added this, this and that and removed this and made this path work like this instead of that, it became great!" realization, which is why I'm thinking there must be some kind of 'formula to fun', some way of making sure that peoples brains constantly are engaged and the experience is pleasurable.
In complex biological systems variability is the rule, and people playing video games are a complex biological system. Your "formula for fun" will have to be something either extremely general and unspecific such as flow or contain millions upon millions of parameters to try to capture massive circumstantial and inter-individual variability. We can identify certain features that large portions of the population will reliably prefer over other features in a particular time frame, but that's no where near the specificity or universality you seem to want.
You're also underestimating the number of people who would choosedirt.
The issue I have with constant things to do is it's overwhelming. That's what I love about BoTW is that I can sit down and explore and just go on an adventure which includes sometimes simply running around and looking at things and seeing where to go next. The notion of finding things and areas of interest is excitement in itself.
Like others have said it's really a personal taste type of thing.
The idea that you should ideally cut everything that doesn't make every test player's pleasure center in their brain light up like a Christmas tree is ludicrous, especially for an open world game. I mean, how much would remain of a Souls game if you cut every bit that's frustrating? Sometimes as a designer, you want that frustration to make things rewarding. And for the same reason, you need "white space" in an open world game.
And, once again returning to this "formula for fun" idea, it seems that BotW got that formula pretty right, judging from the critical reception and number of people who think it's the best Zelda or even best game in a long time.
This is the kind of discussion I want to be having. As clearly the game is amazing 10/10 blah blah blah...
With that out way I 100% agree with you, I could not have been more disappointed by the
Dragon quest
or about 90% of the games reward system after really getting toward the finish.
The weapons systems only real issue to me is not that it breaks, but that getting a weapon as a reward for something that seemed like it should merit something more permanent cuts hard. And occasionally I open up such chests and throw them away immediately because I don't want a heavy fire sword. Or better yet, there is a Fire Sword in a tree in an obvious location that I'm pretty sure respawns. Also enemies in general give you plenty of crap weapons, so for a weapon to be in a chest in a shrine I'm like "I just got a better weapon fighting the Guardian that was guarding this door..."
And to go along with your concept about subverting expectation and occasionally giving something other than a basic spirit orb, (I love the idea of a permanent strength boost by the way) I think that similar things could have been implemented with unbreakable weapons.
The stage was so set for giving high entry barrier rewards that subvert previously expected mechanical conventions. After using breakable weapons for so long giving a sword that couldn't break would be an incredible gift. Even the
Master Sword
is an incredible missed opportunity. How about leaning more into conditional weapon usage and giving specialized items for each enemy type. Unbreakable Bokoblin killer, Lynel killer, etc.
That's just an idea if they are so set on that concept. It's just to me like, I've already played 30 hours of this game. Why isn't there something SO COOL that you want?
Armor is close and the best reward you can possibly obtain, but even then some armors are essentially useless compared to others. How about permanent environment abilities? The ability to use full berserk in cold areas without items would be an incredible reward.
Adhering so closely to its ruleset in the early game is amazing but because they are early, that is what gives the best opportunity to then break those rules later to give you incredible rewards.
Counter arguments I've herd against this are that you can go anywhere and so they can't lock rewards that are too powerful.
Yes they can they did it with the
Master Sword
.
Put more barriers like that in the game, 50 shrines completed gives you this reward, all divine beasts gives you another.
(by the way weapons are given for divine beasts and it's always like great...)
A tower that can only be climbed with a certain amount of stamina and lock food out for that. IDK there are hundreds of potential barriers that could be implemented for high level equipment.
But more importantly the idea that a barrier would be necessary is absurd because I can just beat the game right away. The only reason you need to be stronger for the final boss is because I want to be. So if the only reason not fight Ganon right away is because I am self motivated to gather strength what would be the harm in higher tier rewards?
I think he was was just choosing an extreme analogy that would help to make his point more clear: that certain design choices can dramatically increase the level of positive user response (within a specific 'target' group of gamers), and certain other design choices can dramatically decrease the level of positive user response (within that same target group of gamers). However:
What I meant was that it'd be interesting if we could actually look at peoples brain activity, put them into various categories... I firmly believe that everything in the world can be explained and if we can't explain it, we just haven't found the answers yet - And why should game design and level design be different? Of course 'different strokes for different folks' is true and all...
Note that when we say that everything can be explained, we mean that the observable different strokes phenomenon itself can be studied/explained: one and the same game/level/formula can have different impacts on the brains of two different gamers, precisely because the brains/personalities/preferences of the two gamers differ from each other in specific and identifiable (by way of careful study) ways.
The researchers I mentioned in my previous post (for example) are not content to simply say different strokes and leave it at that: they are very much interested in studying gamer brains/personalities/preferences in a systematic way, in the hope of eventually being able to identify how the brains/personalities/preferences of gamers differ from each other, and to eventually explain how, when and why the different strokes phenomenon occurs (in the gaming context). As The Wart says:
In complex biological systems variability is the rule, and people playing video games are a complex biological system. Your "formula for fun" will have to be something either extremely general and unspecific such as flow or contain millions upon millions of parameters to try to capture massive circumstantial and inter-individual variability. We can identify certain features that large portions of the population will reliably prefer over other features in a particular time frame, but that's no where near the specificity or universality you seem to want.
...at best I can imagine that some general formula are more likely to work for a big number of people ( which is kind of what ubisoft seems to think too ). I think there is many many many formula to fun, something can be fun yet it's opposite can be just as fun, kind of the arcade versus simulation, or even gameplay driven versus story driven...
The better analogy is you have chocolate and caramel. And a steak. If I want something sweet (or an open world) I'll choose between chocolate and caramel (small, dense open world vs large open world with empty spaces). But I might be sick of chocolate, so I'll go with caramel. Or maybe I'm not craving sweets at all and I'll eat that juicy steak (I dunno, a 2d platformer or something)... maybe you detest caramel, and that's fine, but you don't get to say caramel is as bad as dirt because you don't like it.
[Consider]... chocolate and ice cream... people may love one and hate the other, love both, hate the combination (chocolate ice cream) but love both individually... there may be things that most people find great and only some don't?
...The idea that there's an absolute formula to fun transcending genre and taste assumes that all players play games for the same reasons, which is just a weird angle to come at this from. There's a reason that some people play Animal Crossing and some people play Dwarf Fortress and some people play CS:GO. (And a few people might play all three!) This very thread proves this point because lots of people appreciate the downtime in the game that you're framing as objectively bad. Is there an absolute formula for the perfect song, the perfect novel, the perfect film, too? Come on.
30 hours was an example how much time someone could have enjoyed the core mechanics already in the game. I have played the game for a long time 70+ hours minimum. I'm already aware of everything you said.
I don't feel particularly inclined to reexplain my points to you though because the way you responded makes me think you read what I originally said too fast.
The dogpile on OP in this thread is absurd and unnessassary. He's a talented developer who has some interesting thoughts to share. Yes, some of his arguments could be worded better, but overall, even as someone who really likes and appreciates the size of BotW's world, I think he's making a lot of good points. Not agreeing with someone is not a reason to try and vehemently discredit them.
I think he was was just choosing an extreme analogy that would help to make his point more clear: that certain design choices can dramatically increase the level of positive user response (within a specific 'target' group of gamers), and certain other design choices can dramatically decrease the level of positive user response (within that same target group of gamers). :
I think he was was just choosing an extreme analogy that would help to make his point more clear: that certain design choices can dramatically increase the level of positive user response (within a specific 'target' group of gamers), and certain other design choices can dramatically decrease the level of positive user response (within that same target group of gamers).
Exactly. I think people are fairly touchy in Zelda threads, so I need to be very careful about what I'm saying Just to be clear: I did NOT and would never compare Breath of the Wild to 'dirt' (and it's ludicrous to assume that based on me saying that it's one of the best games Nintendo ever made!), I just think it'd be interesting to take a game and do a study like that among various groups to see what works best. It's a bit OT, but since I have been in these UR sessions, it's just something I'd find fascinating
Note that when we say that everything can be explained, we mean that the observable different strokes phenomenon itself can be studied/explained: one and the same game/level/formula can have different impacts on the brains of two different gamers, precisely because the brains/personalities/preferences of the two gamers differ from each other in specific and identifiable (by way of careful study) ways.
I'm sure that's the case. But it'd be interesting to be able to take a certain group of people and then have them test, say, various Mario Maker levels to see if there's a common ground. With level design, I generally always found that 'emptiness' is rarely a good thing for most folks. Keep in mind, I mean emptiness, not 'white space'
Hey guys we all need to calm down, I don´t agree with OP´s main premise, but there´s no need to gang on him. We can have a very informative discussion in this thread
I agree with this; there are already permanent rewards in the game like the Master Sword, the Champion´s powers, armors, horses...it would´ve been nice to have something more tied to some significant sidequests like the dragons. The sidequest for the snow and desert boots is a nice example, there could´ve been more like it, like special gloves to climb on wet surfaces, a device to manipulate climate, a special beacon to create your own fast travel points, a book to write down your recipes, a portable cooking pot...Having more of these quests with special rewards would´ve helped in making all feel more special.
I have mixed feelings about setting up barriers though. On one side they´re nice because they give you an objective, just like getting the necessary base health for the MS is, but on the other having many of these may hurt the freedom you have in the game, which IMO, is one it´s strongest assests. It would be like going back to the door-key design of previous Zelda games instead of moving forward on the freedom path BotW has started.
And yeah I agree with you, it would have to be in addition to all of the other content not instead of if you were to implement barriers for high tier rewards. But even then it still is A limit. Secret content would have been a nice place for it.
Honestly just having them peppered around would have been fine. I get the idea that it might break early game by b lining it to something good right away since everything is available, but I say just make it difficult like Hyrule Castle, and "you deserve it if are able to get it early" kind of attitude. As that attitude already exists in the form of simply beating the game early if you choose to. And more importantly you can only b line if you knew it was there already.
I think it would be my most requested improvement in a sequel that built upon the fundamentals this game made.
I played a little yesterday, I found a horse target mini game that was hard as hell for me for some reason, got horse armor as reward, that's good stuff. Later I went on exploring. Found a bunch of the usual seeds. Found a white lynel, had a big fight, it killed my horse. Kept traveling down the same path, another white lynel, uhh ok, killed it too. Found a hinox, same thing I killed a million times before. Found a shrine under a bridge! It was a challenge of strength, I wanted to throw my controlller. Later I found an NPC and a shrine, this at least had a puzzle, so that was fun.
That balance of seeing and doing the same thing I have done over and over but with sprinkled in good stuff was never an issue in past zelda games and I don't like that it's an issue now. I used to have non stop enjoyment playing zelda with this game it's a lot of waiting to find the interesting.
Exactly. I think people are fairly touchy in Zelda threads, so I need to be very careful about what I'm saying Just to be clear: I did NOT and would never compare Breath of the Wild to 'dirt' (and it's ludicrous to assume that based on me saying that it's one of the best games Nintendo ever made!), I just think it'd be interesting to take a game and do a study like that among various groups to see what works best. It's a bit OT, but since I have been in these UR sessions, it's just something I'd find fascinating
I'm sure that's the case. But it'd be interesting to be able to take a certain group of people and then have them test, say, various Mario Maker levels to see if there's a common ground. With level design, I generally always found that 'emptiness' is rarely a good thing for most folks. Keep in mind, I mean emptiness, not 'white space'
You can do that in the OT (like many devs that posted there), and not create a new thread "from a Game Dev's perspective", when you have nothing relevant to add to the discussion.
