Exploration Versus Map Markers

[CriticalGaming]

So I have an interesting question for the Escapists crowd.

Lately I've been playing a couple of builder games. One of those games is Terraria which just got a massive new content patch, and Dragon Quest Builders 2. Both of these games follow a similar gameplay flow, build things and fight off monsters then using those monster parts to build bigger and better things.

In Terraria finding the materials you need is a hunt, you must dig, fly, kill and explore until you get what you need to build the next thing. This approach has it's merits of course, the player learns how to find things on their own and along the way creates their own approaches to how you play the game. It provides freedom in an organic way, because you are forced to search under every rock you might accidently find something cool that you weren't directly looking for

In DQB2 things are marked. The game doesn't expect you to know where Titanium is, if the quest says get Copper it will mark the map to where you'll find copper. Which is a vastly different approach to what Terraria does. By marking everything on your map, you are never lost and as a result you'll rarely (if ever) explore around to find cool things on your own. However unlike Terraria DQB2 doesn't have a non-linear progression system so there isn't any reason to explore until the game tells you to do so. By doing this the game doesn't waste the player's time.

And honestly, as someone who doesn't have a lot of free time. I prefer the second approach. Don't tell me to go get copper or talk to an NPC without marking my map, because i don't know your world and I don't know where shitstone would be. And even if it might be explained in quest text, most of the time that is too vague and annoying to constant open and close a menu to figure out where to go, and if you spell it out complete in the quest, then just mark the map because it the effect is the same.

Back in the original WoW days, they only every gave you vague directions for Quests. "Go fight Zebras, you'll find them to the Southwest probably maybe". Which in many cases was outright wrong, you'd head Southwest only to find the you were supposed to go 90% West and only 10% south. Making questing eat up more time than it should have due to players getting lost. Thus the Quest addons were created to simply stick a giant spot on the place you where supposed to go for whatever quest.

Disco Elysium was another game that made me think of this issue. Very quickly in that game you are given a huge list of things to do and a lot of those things are so vague that i couldn't be bother to roam around trying to find them. "Go behind the bar, no not there, the other behind the bar stupid." That's how it felt reading those quests and I hate it. People raved about the storytelling of that game, but I couldn't get past the not knowing where to go.

Many other games used this idea too, Skyrim points you in the correct direction, Final Fantasy 14 highlights areas, there are many ways that games do this. And I find myself getting angry at games that don't. I know that some people like to figure it out for themselves but I simply don't have the time for that.

What do you guys prefer. Are you happier exploring aimlessly in a world hoping you stumble on what you need to do. Or do you prefer there be at least some kind of mark or point of interest on your map.

 

[SupahEwok]

I think of how I hardly go anywhere without my phone's navigation app. If I won't put up with wandering aimlessly in daily life, why should I put up with it in my limited free time?

 

[Phoenixmgs]

I feel like if the game and world are designed properly, you shouldn't need any map markers. In the Divinity games the world feels huge but it actually isn't very big as you get everywhere by walking. It's almost like a smaller Horizon (in which I played without markers) in world design where you have distinct looking areas that are rather small in size that populate the larger map. So, when a character says go to the beach to the south, you go there and it takes like a minute to actually find whatever you're looking for. And Divinity feels huge because it's so dense in content, you don't have to ride a horse for minutes to get somewhere.

Whereas when your game isn't designed in such a way, you literally need the map markers unless you want make the game like 10x longer. Witcher 3 is an example of a game that can't really be played without map markers and there's even a Game Maker's Toolkit episode about it.

Disco Elysium was another game that made me think of this issue. Very quickly in that game you are given a huge list of things to do and a lot of those things are so vague that i couldn't be bother to roam around trying to find them. "Go behind the bar, no not there, the other behind the bar stupid." That's how it felt reading those quests and I hate it. People raved about the storytelling of that game, but I couldn't get past the not knowing where to go.

Disco Elysium quests were pretty easy to figure out. I was a bit overwhelmed at 1st but once I read (or saw a video) where it said you can't finish all the quests you get the 1st day in the 1st day, I was pretty much relaxed enough to just play the game and take it in at its own pace. The whole karaoke quest just involves finding/buying the player and the song. Both will turn up as you play. It takes commitment from both the player and the developer because you 1st have to have faith that it will work out and the game has show that you can indeed trust in it. In the end, I kind of loved the whole natural setup of Disco Elysium as you would start the day with a list of things to do and people to get back with. Some days I'd even end up with not much left to do before you could go sleep for the next day.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Disco Elysium quests were pretty easy to figure out. I was a bit overwhelmed at 1st but once I read (or saw a video) where it said you can't finish all the quests you get the 1st day in the 1st day, I was pretty much relaxed enough to just play the game and take it in at its own pace. The whole karaoke quest just involves finding/buying the player and the song. Both will turn up as you play. It takes commitment from both the player and the developer because you 1st have to have faith that it will work out and the game has show that you can indeed trust in it. In the end, I kind of loved the whole natural setup of Disco Elysium as you would start the day with a list of things to do and people to get back with. Some days I'd even end up with not much left to do before you could go sleep for the next day.

You see that drives me crazy. I HATE and I mean FUCKING HATE when games give me quests I can't do when they give them to me. As someone who likes to check off my entire list before accepting more shit to do, the fact that the game drags quests out like that makes me glad i didn't bother playing.

Why not just have a chain of quests if they need to be strung out. Make a quests first part lead into the next part that you can complete on the following day. Don't leave me guessing or having to look shit up figure it out. Fuck that shit.

 

[sXeth]

I think the raw exploration can work, but you need a set world to place it in (or some massive breakthroughs in AI learning to make it work with RNG).


Terraria (and Minecraft for that matter) both fairly early on will hit some annoying barriers, because you start needing to find specific biomes or mobs, and they could literally generate anywhere.


Conversely, No Mans Sky will usually give you an early waypoint, and dedicates whole tech trees to utility that lets you scan for resources from afar. RNG, but you'll never be stymied for progress just trying to find a resource in general, despite the massive size of the randomzied world.



if the game has a set map of course, I would lean more towards built in lore, or logical world design to provide clues rather then blatant indicators.

 

[happyninja42]

It depends on the setting of the game. For example if it's a modern day game, simulating real world levels of technology, then I would prefer they had a very in depth mapping system. For example in a game like Watchdogs 2, where the entire premise is you are playing a kid who is so jacked into the digital system, that you have the entire city at your fingertips. THAT game, should have very precise mapping and targeting for objectives.

Now something more fantasy based, I honestly would prefer it to not be so precise. For example if I'm supposed to be "investigating" a location for clues, it's not really an investigation if everything of note is clearly highlighted the second I get there. Or the "hidden item" i need to find, is clearly glowing behind a book on a shelf, that I pull to open a panel. When in context I would have no reason to think that immediately, as no such clue was given.

That's one thing I really enjoy about AC: Odyssey, their directions system, when set to minimal, is far less intrusive, and just gives you clues based on the geography. "It's on the Island of X. They are found South of City Y. Look for a Weird Thing at the top of the hill" Ok, that seems fair enough, let me pull up the map. Hmm, there's the island, and there's the town, and...ok well there are 2 spots that might be "top of the hill" to the south of City Y, but, that's close enough, I'll just go check them both. And off I go. I really enjoy that. It makes it more enjoyable when I find the stuff. Though I do hate how your eagle just spots the objective for you, long before you get there. It sort of negates all the fun clue following of the first part. I really wish all the eagle did, was narrow down the zone of interest to a specific area. And if you want closer than that, YOU have to go in there yourself and snoop around. But, it's better than a lot of games do, so I give it marks for effort, even if it's not a perfect score.

Again, personally, it depends on the context of the thing in question. If it's something like " I need you to mine me 30 pieces of copper, they can be found along the mountain range to the south of here." Ok that's fine, mining isn't an exact science, so I don't mind having to travel around prospecting as it were.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

You see that drives me crazy. I HATE and I mean FUCKING HATE when games give me quests I can't do when they give them to me. As someone who likes to check off my entire list before accepting more shit to do, the fact that the game drags quests out like that makes me glad i didn't bother playing.

Why not just have a chain of quests if they need to be strung out. Make a quests first part lead into the next part that you can complete on the following day. Don't leave me guessing or having to look shit up figure it out. Fuck that shit.

Just calm down and have faith it'll work out. It makes sense that you can't do something to completion right away, that's how life works a lot, it's organic. You don't have to look up anything for Disco Elysium. You'd probably start pulling out your hair if you saw my current Divinity quest log. The only thing I'm actually looking up to make sure I don't mess up are the companion quests, but they look really hard to fuck up.

 

[Catfood220]

I tend to do both, I tend to set a marker on the map be it a quest marker or some interesting looking pattern on the map and then I'll go wandering off in that general direction. Along the way, I will keep an eye out for interesting looking things like buildings or plumes of smoke or cries for help and get distracted on the way to my destination. In an interesting game, it can take me hours or even days to reach my eventual destination. But it's my favourite thing to do and games like Fallout or The Witcher 3 will reward you if you do.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Just calm down and have faith it'll work out. It makes sense that you can't do something to completion right away, that's how life works a lot, it's organic. You don't have to look up anything for Disco Elysium. You'd probably start pulling out your hair if you saw my current Divinity quest log. The only thing I'm actually looking up to make sure I don't mess up are the companion quests, but they look really hard to fuck up.

I refuse to roam around lost trying to play a guessing game about what quests I can do and where they can be done. I do not have that kind of freetime and the last thing I want to do in my limited gaming sessions is roam around and end up doing nothing because the game doesn't tell me where i can go or even if I can complete a certain quest.

And yeah, I avoid all those isometric RPG's. Divinity, Pilliars, Torment, all of them because they all had the same issue.

I'm not saying their bad games, because obviously they have a fan based and they clearly hit the mark with some people, but they aint my bag and never will be.

 

[stroopwafel]

I don't really like map markers as you're more focused on the compass/mini map than the actual game. It is what makes travel in these huge open world games such an uneventful slog. Sushi seems to have found such a simple, elegant fix for this. I personally would also favor open world being divided into tinier chunks with obvious entry and exit points and clear landmarks. Kinda like the Souls games and Sekiro but on a grander scale. Have zones connect like Shadow of the Colossus for example. That game did it perfectly. Each area was unique but there was still a feeling of travel without a map and without it becoming a chore.

I love open world games to 'feel' big (ehmm..kinda weird phrasing ) but are in actuality quite small and condensed. It's the difference between a map that is memorable and a map that is copy/pasted with similar assets.

 

[CaitSeith]

Question: if you don't have lot of free time, why do you spend it in time-sink games?

EDIT: Personally, I like exploration more; I like to disable map markers at the start, and only activate them when I want to complete pending tasks. I pretty much did that on Death Stranding.

 

[happyninja42]

Question: if you don't have lot of free time, why do you spend it in time-sink games?

EDIT: Personally, I like exploration more; I like to disable map markers at the start, and only activate them when I want to complete pending tasks. I pretty much did that on Death Stranding.

Because there is a difference in spending time in a game where after a session I feel like I accomplished something worth the time. And putzing around for 2 hours, aimlessly and not getting anything productive (in-game) done. If I feel like the game just lead me around with vague clues for hours, and I just accidentally stumble upon the thing, something that I could've found in say 20 minutes with better directions, it makes some gamers feel like they just wasted that gaming session.

Basically time invested versus feeling of time wasted.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Question: if you don't have lot of free time, why do you spend it in time-sink games?

EDIT: Personally, I like exploration more; I like to disable map markers at the start, and only activate them when I want to complete pending tasks. I pretty much did that on Death Stranding.

I don't understand the question? What do you mean by time-sink games? Every game is a time sink.

 

[CaitSeith]

I don't understand the question? What do you mean by time-sink games? Every game is a time sink.

Compare games that take 5 hours to finish with those that take over 100, and tell me that again with a straight face.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Compare games that take 5 hours to finish with those that take over 100, and tell me that again with a straight face.

Time is time, whether you sink 5 hours or 100 either way you've sunk time into a game.

What was the point of your original question though? Why do I bother with time-sink games? You mean why do I try 100 hour RPG's versus, 5 hour Call of Duty games? The simple answer is because I like RPG's and I don't like Call of Duty games.

 

[Dreiko]

I definitely don't like the quest markers in the outer worlds which I'm in the middle of playing right now. I've not found a way to turn them off (maybe the pc version has a mod which does this? lol). I think every game should let you do that lol.

More generally speaking, it kinda depends on how much it blends in the UI. In FFVIIR you could toggle it off or have a compass or a full minimap so that gave you enough control for what suits you.

 

[happyninja42]

I definitely don't like the quest markers in the outer worlds which I'm in the middle of playing right now. I've not found a way to turn them off (maybe the pc version has a mod which does this? lol). I think every game should let you do that lol.

More generally speaking, it kinda depends on how much it blends in the UI. In FFVIIR you could toggle it off or have a compass or a full minimap so that gave you enough control for what suits you.

I'm usually fine with quest markers that just point you to a region to then explore in more detail. I try and assume, that the marker suddenly popping up, is supposed to represent the PC's natural knowledge of the area, because you know, they live there. So the idea that Poof! suddenly the game says Go Here, doesn't bother me too much. What bothers me is when that marker points down to like, the atomic level of the thing I'm looking for. That just makes it dull. Like, for example, if someone told you "It's downtown by the courthouse building." Ok fine, if you are familiar with that area, you instantly have an idea of where to start the search. But, by the courthouse is still somewhat vague, so without any further clarification, I would have to wander around the courthouse square, looking for...whatever it is I'm there for. And if the game marker would change, upon reaching the courthouse square, to just a big area highlighted, that I then have to sniff around, then to me, that's a perfectly good quest marker system. But, if the marker instead, translates to my directions being more like "It's on the north side of the square, by the third tree next to the fire hydrant. The package is under the 7th root counting counter clockwise from the north side of the tree, under an abandoned bird's nest, tilted at a 35 degree angle." THAT kind of precision, annoys me. It takes any fun out of actually being sent to find the thing. It becomes less about searching and following clues, and just about making a delivery.

Now, that being said, if the game is that specific with the directions, but then doesn't highlight the item, forcing me the player to follow the clues to find the spot, well that's just perfect. It's like, the ending to Shawshank Redemption, when Andy tells Red a VERY specific location, even the type of rock to look for and all that. The whole scene of him searching for it was enjoyable. But, in a game, the quest icon would just be glowing right under that tree, thereby negating any need to look for the clues like "the old rock wall, leading to a tree out of a Robert Frost poem" It removes any engagement with the environment, which I dislike.


Sadly, most games seem to fall into the second category of type. Which just makes it following a dot on the screen and pressing a button, without any real engagement by me, the player. Which makes the task less fulfilling, and more like busy work.

Compare games that take 5 hours to finish with those that take over 100, and tell me that again with a straight face.

It doesn't matter how long the game is, if the time playing it is used productively, compared to just faffing about, then it's either a good design or not. If I've got only 2 hours a day to play video games, I want those 2 hours to feel well spent in game. And that means a system that doesn't waste my time on wild goose chases. And especially goose chases that are in the wrong area, because the game didn't explain where the goose even is.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I think the raw exploration can work, but you need a set world to place it in (or some massive breakthroughs in AI learning to make it work with RNG).


Terraria (and Minecraft for that matter) both fairly early on will hit some annoying barriers, because you start needing to find specific biomes or mobs, and they could literally generate anywhere.


Conversely, No Mans Sky will usually give you an early waypoint, and dedicates whole tech trees to utility that lets you scan for resources from afar. RNG, but you'll never be stymied for progress just trying to find a resource in general, despite the massive size of the randomzied world.



if the game has a set map of course, I would lean more towards built in lore, or logical world design to provide clues rather then blatant indicators.

How is No Mans Sky, especially after the updates? I’ve always wanted to try it, because it seems like it could be a fun exploration/discovery type of game that would fit the RNG design aspect, and the planet hopping/looting with a specific purpose sounds fun. But then it got shit on for basically being boring and aimless I think?

On topic, if the game’s main purpose is to explore and discover, then not having markers makes sense as that would detract from the core design.

If the game’s main purpose is pretty much anything else where fetching stuff is merely a means to a greater end, then markers all the way baby. But having said that, a simple dotted path or highlight area is kinda boring. I like how Ghosts of Tsushima has animals that guide you to a point of interest for something different, or how about using an actual compass (not the automatic crap) and interactive map that can be marked up.

Or, if exploring isn’t integral to the game design, make the world more condensed so you’re not so annoyed by the need to traverse it that you’d rather just auto-pilot/fast travel instead.

 

[happyninja42]

How is No Mans Sky, especially after the updates? I’ve always wanted to try it, because it seems like it could be a fun exploration/discovery type of game that would fit the RNG design aspect, and the planet hopping/looting with a specific purpose sounds fun. But then it got shit on for basically being boring and aimless I think?

On topic, if the game’s main purpose is to explore and discover, then not having markers makes sense as that would detract from the core design.

If the game’s main purpose is pretty much anything else where fetching stuff is merely a means to a greater end, then markers all the way baby. But having said that, a simple dotted path or highlight area is kinda boring. I like how Ghosts of Tsushima has animals that guide you to a point of interest for something different, or how about using an actual compass (not the automatic crap) and interactive map that can be marked up.

Or, if exploring isn’t integral to the game design, make the world more condensed so you’re not so annoyed by the need to traverse it that you’d rather just auto-pilot/fast travel instead.

Yeah that is one thing I did like about GoT, using the wind as a travel guide, and the animals as indicators of interest. That was a nice, novel way to reskin a UI mechanic into something in world.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

I refuse to roam around lost trying to play a guessing game about what quests I can do and where they can be done. I do not have that kind of freetime and the last thing I want to do in my limited gaming sessions is roam around and end up doing nothing because the game doesn't tell me where i can go or even if I can complete a certain quest.

And yeah, I avoid all those isometric RPG's. Divinity, Pilliars, Torment, all of them because they all had the same issue.

I'm not saying their bad games, because obviously they have a fan based and they clearly hit the mark with some people, but they aint my bag and never will be.

I'm not roaming around lost in Disco or Divinity. In Disco, I'm not actively trying to find say the tape for the song that I want to sing at the bar. If I have to go the apartments to talk to someone, I'll explore the rest of the apartments for example and do the content that's there. I'll find the tape when I find it, just like I'll find my shoe (or my badge or my gun) when I find it. In Divinity, I do the content in the area I'm in, sometimes it opens up quests I can't do yet, and sometimes I find something that I'll need for a quest I don't even have yet (then when I talk to the quest giver for the 1st time, the quest is already done). I'm not roaming around lost trying to do content, I'm constantly doing content. It's pretty damn hard to not complete content in Divinity even if you were purposefully trying to do so. Content is very densely packed together, you aren't going to be ever wandering around looking for something to do.