I like a game world that’s just fun to be in even when I’m not advancing the story. Taking a break to explore is awesome, and much easier in an open world.
Is this true?
Submitted 5 days ago by InterestingUsername@lemmy.ml to greentext@sh.itjust.works
https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/200a7fe8-e57f-4af2-a6f9-98f3baac9889.png
Comments
radix@lemmy.world 5 days ago
GraniteM@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Spider-Man for the PS4 had fast travel via subway, by why would you miss out on web-slinging your way from one end of Manhattan to the other?
Karjalan@lemmy.world 3 days ago
This is what witcher 3 did best imo.
It’s open world, and it feels large… But it’s not actually that large when you think about it.
And the side areas are so rich and dense that you can do quests from a random hub, some that chain on for quite a while… And then realise this whole time that you haven’t actually done any of the main story.
I was excited to learn more about certain monsters in the bestiary, what oils and elements they were weak to etc.
Tattorack@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Yes. Many. Stop playing Ubisoft checklist simulators.
Smaile@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
AAA needs a bit of a reset and it looks like that’s what’s happening now.
OhNoMoreLemmy@lemmy.ml 5 days ago
I’m not sure that it’s *better*, but it’s hilarious when you go off and do all the side quests and end up completely over powered by the time you get round to the main quest and just beat the shit out of the main bad guy without realizing that they’re important.
CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
Big bad: “so you have finally come to meet your doo-”
Competitionist: *drops bag of loot on boss, crushing all his bones*
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 5 days ago
That’s why you scale the enemies to the players armour and level!
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
Honestly I really don’t like that in most open world games, mostly cause enemy levels tend to make it feel like I’m just as powerful at lvl 1 as at lvl 40. Bethesda games post Morrowind are particularly bad about this IMO, not to say you can’t have leveled shit just don’t do it to all the enemies, do it like NV where some enemies are leveled but most are flat preset levels.
Cethin@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
I disagree. I hate when games do this, particularly open world ones. The point of going to find loot and stuff is that it benefits you. If there is no benefit then the game shouldn’t give you the option. Those games should be linear, because they’re trying to make a linear experience out of something non-linear.
If I’m struggling, I want to be able to leave and come back stronger. Even if I wasn’t, I want to come back and feel that I’ve gained power with the time I spent. If I don’t, I know I’m wasting my time.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 days ago
That’s so fucking lazy by the gamedesigner, and takes away all the fun too IMO.
MNByChoice@midwest.social 5 days ago
Yes! It helps if it is clear the bad guy has been doing things as well. (Aren’t there a few games where the bad guy moves locations with this, so if one is really fast, they can catch them rather weak.)
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
Imagine scaling enemies by actual player skill needed to defeat them, instead of just ‘my number more big than your number’.
JoShmoe@ani.social 5 days ago
RDR2, GTA, Elder Scrolls, is this a shitpost?
psycotica0@lemmy.ca 5 days ago
Breath of the Wild.
Arguably Outer Wilds.
Ibuthyr@feddit.org 5 days ago
BotW is one of the most boring games ever. Zelda games were fun because of the linearity thanks to finding items that let you progress… And FUCK weapon degradation. What a terrible mechanic.
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 5 days ago
Breath of the Wild has to be the single worst example of an open world game. I am still mad it did not even have any cool dungeons whatsoever.
IronBird@lemmy.world 5 days ago
…this is greentext so…yes, obviously
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
Generally good open world games have a lot more emergent content - situations that emerge from the interaction of agents and simple mechanics (in the style of how simple rules create complex outcomes in the “Game of Life”) - the whilst good linear games have highly curated scenarios which were created by level designers directly.
For an example of the former, imagine you’re running around the Game World looking for a special kind of plant to create a potion that you need. You come across a battle between bears and a bandit group. When they die their drops are free for the taking and both groups are too high level for you to take on your own. None of this was setup to happen when you crossed some trigger line, it literally just happened because those the entities in those groups are part of enemy “factions” and the patrol route of one group (a route which might itself be procedural rather than fixed) passed near enough the position of the encampment of the other.
Think kind of thing randomly happen is just not something you get in linear games which are generally just set-pieces and even the ability to pull on group of high level enemies to another group has to be designed in (mainly by making the restricted game area big enough for it in that section and placing the groups in the right places).
Emergent content is also why Multiplayer can be a lot of fun, though in this case the “agent” whose interactions can give rise to all sorts of situations are other players.
foodandart@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
Oh hell yes.
I’m playing Horizon Zero Dawn Complete (it includes the DLC) and as soon as I got to Daytower, I ran into a guy named Ohtur who mentioned The Cut… I pivoted and headed up there and by sneaking around everything with higher stats than I had, (which was almost everything) I managed to find resources that got me a wickedly powerful weapon. Game changer. Literally.
Being able to get to any part of the map and find it’s hidden goodies is amazing.
TheFinn@discuss.tchncs.de 3 days ago
Emergent content is what I liked about loading a ton of Skyrim mods. Too bad it was also crashy as hell.
I’d like to start a new game but since I’m Linux only these days it makes it harder.
groet@feddit.org 5 days ago
The problem is not “open world” but “the ubisoft game”. New region, find watchtower, reveal map, do 1 quest, attack enemy camp, liberate area, new area, find watchtower, …
Most open worlds are also just way to big. GTA San Andreas felt huge but is tiny compared to V. And it was better for it. Modern open worlds never have a hub. A place that you actually build a relationship with and see change over the course of the game. Its always: area completed, next!
AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml 5 days ago
Yeah San Andreas was the open world game I was thinking of too, with the expanding of your crime syndicate. It’s pretty much the only game I’ve played that implements an open world properly and I’ve been chasing that since then. Fallout 4 maybe, but building settlements or forts didn’t have real impact. Diablo IV is way too driven to rush through and get to the endgame.
I think you really need to design it to be more of a simulation game that reacts to player actions and with a story inserted, not as a “feature” to check off. And a distinct goal or win condition for playing the open world.
groet@feddit.org 4 days ago
If every place/area only serves one purpose then the game should be linear. Some of my favourite games are the old Gothic and Gothic 2 RPGs. They are open world, but tiny compared to modern RPGs. They dont have “areas” with a set difficulty that you can complete and then move on, instead the map is like a skeleton of fairly save roads and settlements and the further you go away from the roads the harder it gets. So you see the whole map in the first chapter but have explored very little of it. You always return to the same areas and they feel like home. And every chapter of the story adds new enemies, quests and events to all areas of the game. All of it is hand picked. No “radient quests” to trick you into going to an completed dungeon again, no random encounters on the roads to make travel through the world feel less empty…
IMO, they have the best open worlds I have ever seen. The studios follow up open world games (Gothic 3, elex 1&2) fell flat because they tried to be huge as well and felt empty as a result.
Working with constraints does actually produce gems. Fallout, farcry, GTA, skyrim just throw billions of dollars at a project to make it huge. But everything there is is just a set piece to be looked at once and be discarded …
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I love a good hub, especially when it actually changes and grows
BowtiesAreCool@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Open world == giant map
Take resident evil games, Control, Batman. Some larger maps than others, but the key is open. Most of the map or level is available to you to explore how you like, with a linear story guiding you through as well, and then progression opens smaller locked areas and new levels.
Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net 4 days ago
Had to explain this to a friend when I called the original Deus Ex titles were “open world” games. (It’s technically semi-open world but, meh, nuances)
Doom@discuss.online 3 days ago
It’s 100% Open World I’d argue. It was just ahead of it’s time
ICastFist@programming.dev 4 days ago
Being able to fuck around can be fun. A linear Elder Scrolls (morrowind, oblivion, skyrim) would be boring
mirshafie@europe.pub 4 days ago
GTA 3, Vice City, San Andreas. Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3 (yes), New Vegas. Elden Ring. Subnautica.
Try making San Andreas linear and you would instantly destroy one of the best games ever made.
zaphod@sopuli.xyz 4 days ago
On the other hand later GTAs didn’t embrace the open worlds for which the series is known. Once you start a mission the games turn extremely linear without giving the player options.
0x0@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
OTOH, just drifting along the map and running into a total stranger who feels perfectly safe in trusting you to escort his daughter or something is kinda meh.
I like open-world, but procedural anything, not so much.
HollowNaught@lemmy.world 5 days ago
When progression is properly controlled such as in fallout: new vegas or hollow knight, then a larger map can do wonders
cRazi_man@europe.pub 4 days ago
I wouldn’t put Metroidvanias (with large maps, back tracking, ability gating and flexibility in which area to go to next) alongside other open world adventure games (like GTA, Witcher, Breath of the Wild, etc). I love Metroidvanias and linear games, but I wouldn’t touch open world adventure RPGs with a 10 foot pole.
HollowNaught@lemmy.world 4 days ago
That’s what I’m saying. The only open world games that truly utilise their worlds are ones that first close it off
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 5 days ago
I think sequence breaking is fun, and you need a somewhat open world for that. IME many modern open world games avoid this by tightly tying loot to levels or stats that you increase by leveling, which kinda defeats the point of open world games IMO.
EggInDisguise@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 days ago
My favorite open world game that ISN’T a fantasy rpg also happens to be the easiest “finish the game early” I’ve ever experienced.
Ghost Recon Breakpoint.
Basically you start the game in “realism” mode which turns loot levels off,. Then in the intro mission, when you see the bad guy kill a team member, you gain control of your character before he gets in a helicopter and leaves. Run forward with a scoped gun to shoot him in the head, or have something explosive ready to blow up the helicopter.
Congrats, you’ve killed the main bad guy of the game and the last level no longer has you fight him in some building.
You still have to do everything else in the game, but I managed to do that by accident my first play through. Put probably 150 hours in that game over the years and multiple playthroughs and still have yet to play with loot leveling on. I do sometimes let him live though just for funsies.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 5 days ago
That’s amazing, and surprising that the boss actually stayed dead!
jaaake@lemmy.world 4 days ago
The benefit is the experience. The difference in experiences comes down to the level design. Are you in a maze or in a field?
The best game designs masks this in both scenarios.
The well designed linear game doesn’t always feel like a maze, and has sections that feel like fields between mazes.
The well designed open world game contains mazes that you discover in a field that feels roped off into clearly defined sections that differ from each other and contain large landmarks to orient and draw you in.
Both feel bad if they don’t include (at least the illusion of) the other. A linear game is boring without any choice. An open world game is boring without linear moments.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
I mean like, compare a … hub and spokes style immersive sim game, to any given open world game.
With an ImSim, you often get planted into an area, with a single or multiple main quests, and a whole bunch of essentially discoverable sidequests… and, when done well, those optional sidequests significantly affect how the main quests play out, and may give you different options for how to approach or conclude those main quests.
Then, onto the next hub/spoke section.
ImSims are not typically associated with literal huge spaces… but the spaces they do have tend to be well interwoven.
But also, they’re not strictly linear in the way of like … an FPS campaign/single player mode usually is. Sure you can have the literal levels be maze like, but theres usually only one entrance and exit.
ImSims open up the conceptual field of a given linear sequence of levels, by allowing totally different play styles to yield signifcantly different experiences, and often the additional mechanics they do this with are more than just combat… social and exploratory play can be rewarded or punished by altering the narrative itself.
There are often entirely optional, missable ‘sidequests and submazes’, basically, even in a typically smaller amount of literal space.
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Cyberpunk 2077.
I like the linear missions, but just exploring the open world and discovering things naturally is fun too. I think they could have done more with that, and it definitely feels like the game was way more linear in early development, but with all the updates CDPR managed to make something pretty cool IMO.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
You might like the Dark Future mod, its roughly the equivalent of New Vegas’ hardcore/jsawyer mode.
Doom@discuss.online 3 days ago
The Witcher 3. Linear as hell story, super fun open world. It was literally gwent simulator for me by the time I finished that game.
BaraCoded@literature.cafe 4 days ago
Not much. Open-world is often a design for a looooot of space without intention. It used to be a technical prowess, but now it’s mostly for bland chores simulators. Generic open-worlds and mobile games have hurt game design a lot, especially in the 2010’s, but IMHO, Fromsoft has saved us from that by creating a semi-open, interconnected world design that felt vast and intentional. Elden Ring was their first modern open-world and they nailed it with all that Souls experience.
AnimalsDream@slrpnk.net 4 days ago
I pretty much always prefer open world, or at least something interconnected like a Metroidvania. Linear makes me feel like my back is against the wall.
uairhahs@lemmy.world 4 days ago
You missed a collectable 4 missions ago? I guess I’ll see you in New Game+
AnimalsDream@slrpnk.net 18 hours ago
Missables are the bane of my existence.
saimen@feddit.org 5 days ago
Outer wilds is the only true open world game since you are exploring a whole (kind of miniature) solar system and you can just fly in one direction forever (kind of). And it’s open worldness is integral part of the gameplay. There is literally no story arch (except the ending), you are just exploring.
mavu@discuss.tchncs.de 4 days ago
Elden Ring did it very well.
EldenLord@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I’ll have to agree with this statement.
However, it recently has come to my attention that, unfortunately, the abundance of land between each settlement and the hereby caused long travel times have significantly lowered the property values in regions that have not yet been attached to the Gold Road Transport Enterprises® public transit network.
Unhappy with this status quo, the city council of Liurnia under mayor Boggart reached out to me.
In cooperation with the “Multifunctional Anti-Gravity Intelligent Carriages” research team at the Academy of Raya Lucaria, we have developed plans for a fleet of self-driving, hovering vehicles which will provide a convenient and reliable way of commute around the wetlands.
Totally free of charge and non-invasive to the habitat of all local swamp life, this project will be realized by the FIERY GIANT Construction & Regenerative Energy Crucible Technologies LLC.
An Elden Lord has many responsibilities, I guess.
mavu@discuss.tchncs.de 3 days ago
Death Stranding / Elden Ring cross over?
count me in.
IronBird@lemmy.world 3 days ago
eh, too many repeated bosses
sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyz 5 days ago
Last night I had a realization that the whole reason fallout 3 was given a radio is to fill the hours and hours of nothing in between locations. And also for the dungeon crawling.
moakley@lemmy.world 5 days ago
For me, half the fun in Fallout is discovering some old building and piecing together what fucked up thing happened there.
Satranath@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Bethsoft often pisses me off or lets me down but they are absolutely good at environmental storytelling, no doubt
sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyz 4 days ago
There’s definitely something to that. I liked that detective kind of work too. Games don’t need dialogue to tell good stories. There’s even good ways to just wander a large empty world and see sights.
Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 5 days ago
Too bad that the music selection is so tiny that you basically need mods with more (lore-friendly) music.
sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyz 4 days ago
Agreed.
Thorry@feddit.org 5 days ago
I think Elden Ring is excellent for being open world. People often criticize the open world aspect because the crafting system is kinda dumb, the caves are samey and don’t offer much in terms of benefits or exciting stuff. It’s also hard to find quests and easy to miss them (on top of the bullshit story telling of Souls). And experienced people often just basically do a boss rush where they run from boss to boss. But I actually think it’s excellent and brilliant game design.
I absolutely loved the feeling of having an entire world to explore. The world did actually feel alive for me, with people and stuff everywhere. Different biomes and decent enemy variety (even though there are plenty of repeats). Looking for quests, exploring caves and doing it all felt like fun. Even though I didn’t engage with the crafting much (I did do a bow and consumables challenge run once, but I stuck to just a few kinds of pots and arrows throughout). I felt for me personally it added to the experience.
But in terms of game design it’s a huge step forward. With the older games if you got hard stuck on a boss, that was it. You could go grind the previous level if you were really desperate, but that was about it. Especially for new people, this often meant they didn’t finish the game. A lot of them didn’t even make it past the tutorial boss. With a community telling them to Git Gud, people would assume the games weren’t for them and quit. Which is a shame, because the games are good and worth playing imho. With the open world aspect, there’s no rush to beat a boss. You can go explore, level up, find better weapons and better armor. And with the way the world is laid out, you can go pretty far without ever beating a single boss. Then come back later and beat the boss, maybe a bit over leveled, but that’s fine. If you want the challenge, it’s there, but if you are just a casual gamer looking for a fun time, it’s there as well.
It’s not all upsides tho, as people can also easily get lost and feel like they don’t know where to go. Or miss entire areas because they were following the main quest. So not all rainbow and sunshine, but overall a positive aspect.
The open world also makes for an excellent randomizer, I’ve been absolutely addicted to Elden Ring Rando. So much fun!
SamuraiBeandog@lemmy.world 5 days ago
on top of the incredible, subtle, deep story telling of Souls
FTFY
Redditmodstouchgrass@lemmy.zip 5 days ago
My only issue with Elden Rings world is a lot of it is just Hyrule Field from Ocarina of Time. That is to say, bland empty areas with little bits at the edges.
moakley@lemmy.world 5 days ago
I found that the rewards were almost always meaningful. Even if it wasn’t a weapon or a spell I could use, it was always something unique that I totally could build around.
Thorry@feddit.org 4 days ago
Yeah agreed. Even if it wasn’t anything useful, it would be interesting and something to inspire future builds.
Agreed on BotW, although I didn’t like it to start with. It being open world felt actually like a step down, as I liked the exploration in the earlier games where you’d be locked out somewhere and had to find an item to get further. It made me wonder what there was to find and I was excited whenever I got the item so I could go find out. With the world in BotW just being open and mostly empty on top of that, it just felt boring. And I didn’t like the shrines, I felt they were too easy, too short and too gimmicky. The only fun I had with them was trying to do thing in an unintended way.
MeatPilot@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
As a completionist open-world games give me progressively more anxiety. Worried I might miss something or mess up a quest line I like.
I am perfectly fine with a clean story or just don’t bog me down with a growing list of uninteresting side quests. No I don’t want to harvest 500 goblin dicks for a helmet that completes my set.
nomy@lemmy.zip 5 days ago
the helmet is a big floppy dick for my Phallus gear set. I get all the pieces, it unlocks a projectile attack that sticks enemies in place.
Well now I want the helmet, but if I complete this other minor side quest it’s going to become uncompletable, but it doesn’t mention that anywhere I have to read a strategy guide to know that.
Aqivex@fedinsfw.app 5 days ago
You were supposed to run up in time to kill the first hard-dicked goblin you see first, before it dies in its scripted sequence.
Then you can loot the sticky gobnut item, and if you interpret its lore correctly, you’d know that finishing the side quest where you find the lost canoe tribe would quell the hunger of the hard-dicked goblins, changing their world models and drops so you can’t craft the helmet recipe after that.
Duh. Git gud.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
Try Kenshi.
There’s no main quest at all, beyond try not to die.
MeatPilot@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
Everyone has different tastes. My tend to get narrowed the older I get.
Now I pretty much stick to co-op games with drop-in and out via a matchmaking. Usually with a mechanic for tweaking things, like DRG or Darktide.
If I play anything solo, I’m a big mech fan (MW5) or I lean towards city builders.
But overall I need more than survival games or open world blank slates. I know people love those, but I’m from an era without that as the norm. I don’t mind some rails if it’s good content.
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 5 days ago
Midnight club 2 was pretty dang cool.
The open world nature made the races very fun and was a big (arguably genre defining) departure from other racing games.
It’s had a rare combination of skill, map utilization, and novelty that made it a fun game to play
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
Honestly a very good example here of ‘open world’ done in a genre that usually doesn’t see it so much.
lightnsfw@reddthat.com 3 days ago
Minecraft made a bajillion dollars.
craftrabbit@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Breath of the wild and jet island were able to create this feeling of curiosity where I’d go “huh, that think in the distance looks cool, let’s check it out!” and then, as I was checking it out, it turned out it is relevant to story and progression and also very cool.
webp@mander.xyz 5 days ago
Anon desires the string.
minorkeys@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Yes? Completing objectives in the order I feel like at the time can absolutely be a better experience than a forced sequence of objectives.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
Yes, but the open world has to exist in the game as a meaningful set of gameplay systems/potentialities.
There have to actually be things that could challenge you, cost you, reward you, capture your attention, present you with a secret if investigated, set off an actually meaningful chain of events, etc.
If ‘open world’ is implemented as simply ‘big space with occasional trash mobs wholly disconnected from the rest of the game’… you have a very shitty implementation of an open world.
Open world doesn’t, or I guess shouldn’t simply mean ‘big empty space’.
If your game has a fast travel option that you regularly or often use to skip the open world, your open world sucks.
dingleberrylover@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I would definitely say Gothic 1 and 2. Cannot imagine the games being better without it.
Bademantel@lemmy.world 5 days ago
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild & Tears of the Kingdom.
It’s all about exploring. It would be impossible with a linear structure.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
Witcher 3 is so much better than 2 or even 1 (which was also confusing).
Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 5 days ago
I dont think Minecraft would do too well being linear.
cobysev@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Minecraft: Story Mode was actually pretty popular. It was basically a story-rich RPG set in a Minecraft world.
MrNobody@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 days ago
Maybe, but it was nowhere near as popular as plain Minecraft. The sales numbers alone can attest to that, plus the fact there hasn’t been a sequel should be all the proof you need to say that a linear minecraft wouldn’t do too well.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 5 days ago
Most people who played both probably have an order of magnitude more playtime in Minecraft, though.
bstix@feddit.dk 4 days ago
It would be nice with some kind of linear quest in minecraft.
However if they were procedurally generated, I’d lose interest. That’s just another layer of grinding.