Is the "Open World" approach killing RPGs? And will it ever stop?

[Danbo Jambo]

Yeah, I kind of get what you mean, but at the same time for me its often like loading screens. Instead of sitting there watching a loading screen of me going to the next scene, I'm actually going there myself, and the continuity continues to flow.
Now, when you throw a lot of extra stuff in my way... That gets annoying, but the open world aspect itself isn't so much an issue to my mind.

And again, most of the issue is in the Crow's Perch area, which conveniently enough takes up about 3/4s of the map. The Northern area around Novigrad fairs much better, and is a much smaller part of the map with less wilderness. Skellige is in between; parts of it are wide and open and all that, parts of it are quite contained. It depends on exactly which bit you're doing at any given time as to how it'll fair.

Novigrad itself though has been, thus far, probably one of my favourite parts of the game. Its just one city, yet there's probably as many major quests in the one city as there are in the entire south half of the map. And nowhere near as many just random monsters, because you're in a city. There are still the occasional predictable bandits and all that side of things, but it feels like a much more focused area than the south.

I'm just in Novagrad now and, whilst I agree it's better, it's also helped me figure out what is killing the game as an RPG for me - to me it's a sandbox game. Basically, every NPC you can interact with has a marker or comes via a quest, and that just KILLS any real RPG feel for me.

The whole game feels more like Assasin's Creed than it does TW2/DA:O etc and, because of how it's so mathmatically & predictably setup, I just don't find myself paying attention to anything else around me. I just look at the minimap and run towards the next objective as I know everything worthwhile is quest related, so just avoid the rest. But that avoidence still takes time and interferes with my enjoyment.

Those dialogue options are far less fun than TW2 too. TW2 wasn't perfect, but I've lost count of the amount of times I may have well not been presented with any options.

Still ploughing through, still semi enjoying it, still coming across occasional bit of brilliance, but said brilliance is just so damn thinly spread now. Current rating would be 7/10.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

The whole game feels more like Assasin's Creed than it does TW2/DA:O etc and, because of how it's so mathmatically & predictably setup, I just don't find myself paying attention to anything else around me. I just look at the minimap and run towards the next objective as I know everything worthwhile is quest related, so just avoid the rest. But that avoidence still takes time and interferes with my enjoyment.

That's what I told myself in my first playthrough too, lasting me some good 90 hours. Then when I booted up my second playthrough I quickly realized I had missed a lot of side quests that weren't marked out by the notice boards and a bunch of interesting unmarked locations.

The thing that has so many of us singing the Witcher's praise is the consistent atmosphere of the game. Velen looks and feels like a wartorn, medieval land, Crow's Perch oozes the atmosphere of a self-styled despot trying to mimic rightful rule by setting up his extortion racket in a dilapidated fort. Novigrad feels like a barely planned medieval city with clearly defined quarters that all have their own feeling. While it is true that you won't find many deep, winding quest as you explore Velen, Novigrad or Skellige, that criticism sort of misses the area in which the Witcher 3 stands out: The world feels believable and consistent. As someone who lives on the coast of Southern Sweden I can say that the nature design of Velen and Novigrad captures the feeling of these latitudes, while the villages, roads and what not nails the medieval feeling.

The Witcher is a great RPG not because it constantly overwhelms the player with deep quests (though there are dozens of those too and even the shortest side quests tends to have its' fair share of wold building or characterization throw in) but because it puts the player in a lovingly crafted and rendered world. While much of the world is rather empty, save for random animals or monster, it is still imbibed with an atmosphere that far exceeds the barren MMO-inspired areas of DA:I or Kingdoms of Amalur.

Also, just wait until you are deeper in the main quest and then come back and tell us that the dialogue is less fun or that the options don't matter...

 

[Danbo Jambo]

The whole game feels more like Assasin's Creed than it does TW2/DA:O etc and, because of how it's so mathmatically & predictably setup, I just don't find myself paying attention to anything else around me. I just look at the minimap and run towards the next objective as I know everything worthwhile is quest related, so just avoid the rest. But that avoidence still takes time and interferes with my enjoyment.

That's what I told myself in my first playthrough too, lasting me some good 90 hours. Then when I booted up my second playthrough I quickly realized I had missed a lot of side quests that weren't marked out by the notice boards and a bunch of interesting unmarked locations.

The thing that has so many of us singing the Witcher's praise is the consistent atmosphere of the game. Velen looks and feels like a wartorn, medieval land, Crow's Perch oozes the atmosphere of a self-styled despot trying to mimic rightful rule by setting up his extortion racket in a dilapidated fort. Novigrad feels like a barely planned medieval city with clearly defined quarters that all have their own feeling. While it is true that you won't find many deep, winding quest as you explore Velen, Novigrad or Skellige, that criticism sort of misses the area in which the Witcher 3 stands out: The world feels believable and consistent. As someone who lives on the coast of Southern Sweden I can say that the nature design of Velen and Novigrad captures the feeling of these latitudes, while the villages, roads and what not nails the medieval feeling.

The Witcher is a great RPG not because it constantly overwhelms the player with deep quests (though there are dozens of those too and even the shortest side quests tends to have its' fair share of wold building or characterization throw in) but because it puts the player in a lovingly crafted and rendered world. While much of the world is rather empty, save for random animals or monster, it is still imbibed with an atmosphere that far exceeds the barren MMO-inspired areas of DA:I or Kingdoms of Amalur.

Also, just wait until you are deeper in the main quest and then come back and tell us that the dialogue is less fun or that the options don't matter...

I guess that's where it's going tits up for me, because I rarely get absorbed by aesthetics alone. All those positives you mention above about the design & areas are all totally wasted on me as I just don't really care for it. The RPG experience I love is one which provokes emotional reactions from both story & character interactions. Buck Rogers Countdown to Doomsday, FF2 etc. - games which move me but which look terrible.

The main quest is doing enough to keep me playing. There are moments of sheer brilliance, and occasionally I feel like I'm having a TW2 style experience.

I've also made a decision to start ignoring monster hunts & secondary quests too unless they feel relevant to the mian plot. There's just too many, and - whilst some are utterly superb, original & bang on - the filler ones drag them down too.

Overall I feel that had they trimmed this game by around 35%, quests & world size, and added some extra NPCs who just helped build the RPG feel it would have been far better. I could see why they wanted to expand TW2, but this has gone waaaaaay too far for me. I hate GTA 5 & Assasins Creed, and the fact that TW series has started walking that road is a shame.

 

[Joccaren]

I'm just in Novagrad now and, whilst I agree it's better, it's also helped me figure out what is killing the game as an RPG for me - to me it's a sandbox game. Basically, every NPC you can interact with has a marker or comes via a quest, and that just KILLS any real RPG feel for me.

Eh... That's kind of the opposite of a sandbox then. Sandbox is about letting you run around and do what you want, non-sandbox tends to make you follow the quest markers without the freedom to do what you want. I'll agree TW3 is partially sandbox, but not for that reason. That's more a convention of non-sandbox RPGs.

As for NPCs and quest markers... I really don't see much different in most games. DA:O, Skyrim, Mass Effect, KotOR, TW2... Almost every character with dialogue was a part of some quest or other, or otherwise a barkeep, merchant, or minigame player. There were one or two there to give tips in an in-lore fashion too, but most generic NPCs in all the games had the briefest of brief interactions, if any. It comes with the territory of CRPGs. Its also a fairly reasonable non-sandbox game design choice, where you will generally want to direct players towards the content, rather than hide it and frustrate them by making them run around for a while trying to find this cool quest they'd heard about.

And not every worthwhile interaction comes with a marker. Most do, but some of my favourite and most brilliant parts of the game have come around from just finding some place where an interesting side quest took place, or doing an investigation as a part of what seems at first to be a normal quest.

The whole game feels more like Assasin's Creed than it does TW2/DA:O etc and, because of how it's so mathmatically & predictably setup, I just don't find myself paying attention to anything else around me. I just look at the minimap and run towards the next objective as I know everything worthwhile is quest related, so just avoid the rest. But that avoidence still takes time and interferes with my enjoyment.

Honestly, I did the exact same thing in TW2 and DA:O. Most, if not all, games these days are mathematically and predictably set up, because if they're not it tends to frustrate people. Some more exploration focused games do exist, but generally you want people to be able to find and experience the content they want to enjoy, rather than have to alt-tab constantly for online walkthroughs to its location.

Those dialogue options are far less fun than TW2 too. TW2 wasn't perfect, but I've lost count of the amount of times I may have well not been presented with any options.

By and large this is because Geralt is a pre-written character. Much like you don't choose the dialogue choices of Allistair when he's in your party in DA:O, you don't choose everything about what Geralt says. He gets some choices in some situations to reflect the different sides of his character, and give the player some agency, but he will always be Geralt, and sometimes there are just things he will or won't do, or ways that he will react to a situation because of his character. And that's part of roleplaying too. I mean I guess they could have given you multiple options and a DM that says "No, you can't say that, that's not what your character would do" when you pick the wrong one, but that would probably annoy and confuse more than help.

Still ploughing through, still semi enjoying it, still coming across occasional bit of brilliance, but said brilliance is just so damn thinly spread now. Current rating would be 7/10.

Eh, it may not be the sort of game for you then, but not because its open world. Its an RPG where you're playing an already made character, and thus end up railroaded at times, and its story focused rather than map exploration focused - you're guided to where the story content bits are, rather than told to go find them. If anything, these complaints don't sound like it isn't focused enough, but like its too focused for your tastes - outside all the damn ? marks that really need to just get removed from the game. And that's something I'm also rather getting annoyed at these days - the focus on making things very upfront and basic and requiring minimal thought, rather than actually giving the player a mental challenge; just reflex ones. Exploration-based games are on the decline, and by that I don't mean big open world sandboxes with lots to see in them but markers for where everything is and no real exploration required to advance, just mashing the Attack button at enemies in some kind of quest I'm looking at you bloody Skyrim... Ahem. But exploration games in the sense of having the player look around the world, discover things for themselves, and then use that knowledge to progress, rather than quick reflexes or grinding. But that's a different problem to the open world rise, and its a problem becoming endemic to society as a whole; TV shows will explain what just happened on screen in case you didn't get the subtle signals being sent, as will movies. Darth Vader's infamous added "Noooooooo" in Ep 6 exemplifies this. Some say what's the harm, but its often insulting, and doesn't engage me as much as more natural actions would.

It sounds like the perfect storm of not quite what you'd like, which I'm getting a feel of being exploring the world, rather than exploring the map. And thankfully some games like that do still exist, but yeah, they're getting rarer, and its not likely to be the AAA industry that asks its players to think and solve puzzles to progress. As said, its different to the open world issue, but its another shift that's been happening for a long time sadly =/

 

[sXeth]

As someone who has been playing CRPG's for 30 years, it's an absolute disaster. I call it Skyrim Disease, and it's spreading and infecting the entire genre.

Weren't most CRPGs of the last 30 years open world adventures? Hell, from the first Rogue games to Baldur's Gate and Fallout to now Dragon Age, Pillars Of Eternity and The Witcher. They've all featured open worlds.

Hence why I'm not sure that it's the open-world aspect that's problematic. I feel like the content in it has been simplified. It's become prettier but more hollow. Though to me The Witcher 3 has been the antithesis to that. I've been playing that for the past two weeks and I'm so happy to be playing a CRPG with high-quality side-content again, not just "Kill 10 Boars"-ish stuff (read: keyword is "just" here, because it's definitely there though you have to actively look for it) with barely any context and characterization.

It does do the whole collection-all-the-things thing though, but luckily that's optional.

I suppose they were, but it's all about scale. Those games didn't FEEL so huge and unmanageable. Each area had borders. You could go to one area after the other, explore the area and do all the quests before moving onto the next area, without getting bored or the game feeling so tedious. You weren't diverted with side quests for endless hours until you almost forget that there is a the main story because it's been weeks since you progressed in it.

The key to me is, does it FEEL bloated and overstuffed with boring filler? I know it's not quite the same type of game, but I just discovered the Dark Souls series, having never played any of them before. Playing through Dark Souls 1, it doesn't feel like there is ANY filler. Every zone has it's own unique style and flavor. Every trash mob feels like an obtacle to be overcome on the way to an important objective, rather than the trash mobs and the trash loot and the fetch quest or question mark on the map associated with it being the "objective."

As far as sheer real estate comparison, I think the entire game of Dragon Age Origins is smaller area-wise than the Hinterlands. DAO is considered a classic, benchmark game by most RPG enthusiasts. It was plenty big, and plenty long. It never felt like you were just doing MMO-style busy work, like you were logging on to do your WoW daily quests. In my opinion, there was absolutely NOTHING positive that came out of making Dragon Age bigger, let alone 10x, 20x, 30x bigger or whatever DAI turned out to be. All it did was produce an extremely watered down slog fest.

I think I posted here already about it, but yeah. The problem seems to be less in the open world (which has been in RPGs for decades now), and more in the bleeding in of MMO mechanics.

Empty terrain stretches (in MMO, to save on server load), fetch quests, "collect twenty bear asses" quests, respawning dungeon instances, level scaling loot, even some stuff like mining and crafting systems. All of these are mostly being shifted in to try and cash in off the MMO craze since post-WOW. OF course, in an MMO, many of these are justified by the technical limits of server loads, or balanced out by the social experience taking some precedent over deep story based gameplay.

When you transition these elements to a single-player experience though. It becomes a repetitive slog without much to hook people in. Even worse if you push for "vastness" by making quests artificially span the map a la Bethesda's Radiant system. (Really, the only reason you need Fast Travel in Fallout/Skyrim is because they started just dropping quests randomly all over the map without rhyme or reason or flow). Then you just end up slogging through the same empty space again and again, becoming numb to any scenery to simply follow the arrow (or watch the loading screens while fast travelling)

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Empty terrain stretches (in MMO, to save on server load), fetch quests, "collect twenty bear asses" quests, respawning dungeon instances, level scaling loot, even some stuff like mining and crafting systems. All of these are mostly being shifted in to try and cash in off the MMO craze since post-WOW. OF course, in an MMO, many of these are justified by the technical limits of server loads, or balanced out by the social experience taking some precedent over deep story based gameplay.

I think the simple reason that they exist in single player games is that these MMO-features are much simpler to make. Instead of making a medium sized area full of features (which DA:O did a lot) you make a massive area with the same amount of features spread out over it (which DA:I did a lot) in order to wow people with scale without having to increase the actual workload. Instead of handcrafting loot for dungeons or encounters you create a bunch of loot tables that can be applied anywhere, which cuts down massively on the final stage overpasses. Instead of giving out side quests from interactable NPCs that can be questioned about exposition, you have an NPC spouting one liners when giving/ending the quest to cut down on voice work, risk of scripting errors etc..

What all these time savers end up doing is that they also make the game feel detached and empty. The Witcher 3 proved that even small touches like making side quests start and end with an actual conversation and interspersing the open world with interesting features makes all the difference when compared to the soulless open world that was DA:I.

 

[wings012]

My issue with most open world games, not necessarily RPGs specifically is how they are basically linear games. You just chopped up a completely linear game and scattered it across an open world. So now I get the walk to each part of the linear game and when those segments activate, I'm forced to play turbo linear. Nope follow the guy, follow him tight or gameover. Can't leave it halfway without gameover. Can't decide how I want to bloody tackle it. Get locked into a boss arena.

Some games make an effort of trying to integrate the open world shenanigans into the core game, like Shadows of Mordor. To progress the main game you have to do some orc turncoating and stuff, but it still falls into the trappings of the usual open world shenanigans. Still has some very activity based shit and there's all the tower climbing and flower picking. Still I think it is a step in the right direction and hopefully someone takes it absolutely further where there's some kind of core gameplay element revolving around the open world instead of still having to count on going to quest markers and getting locked into completely linear play segments. Like there's no mission crap and you just win when you've dominated every orc warlord.

In that case, why even fanny about with a bloody sandbox. Give me a tailored linear experience instead instead of wasting my time having to navigate to different parts of it.

If the sandbox is fun though, it is less of an issue somewhat. GTA and Saint's Row is open to much shenanigans and arguably you just wanna finish the main plotline to unlock all the shenanigans for maximum shenaninanananess.

People like to say ROLE PLAYING for open world games. When they don't really allow you to roleplay that much. It's just a less focused experience and the roleplaying is all in the player's head. There's really not that many choices to define your character in most RPG sidequests. Just do the damn thing, get it over with. I have a friend who refused to join the Thief's Guild and Dark Brotherhood in Skyrim cause roleplaying. More power to you if you like doing that, but in my eyes you're just locking yourself out of content that doesn't really impact the game world a whole lot.

This does present a dilemma to me though. I hate it when a game locks me out of content and I have to play the game again to experience just small parts cause of choices. But I also hate it when choices are just bloody shallow with no consequences.

For me the perfect marriage of Open World and Linear would be something like Deus Ex or Dishonored. It's still linear and level based, but there's still choices to be made, approaches to choose from and no hand holding back pushing prescripted nonsense.

I still enjoy a Beth game every now and then. It's just comfortable, if not particularly fulfilling ultimately. Going through my lists, building myself up to be the turbo badass god of death. But I wouldn't want to play that sort of game consecutively. I still can't be arsed to bother with FO4's DLC or modding it for extra value. Probably something I'll do a few years down the line when I get another craving and the next TES is still nowhere to be seen.