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[Drizzlehell]

Well OP, you might get your wish.

Neil Druckmann is intrigued by Elden Ring's storytelling & may try something similar

The Naughty Dog and The Last of Us director teased that there were several projects at Naughty Dog that may try a less 'hand-holding' narrative design.

www.shacknews.com

Though as others have pointed out, there are plenty of Western games that do it well already.

Name a few.

It's not a challenge or anything. I genuinely wanna know because I would gladly play more open world games like this but in a different genre. But don't mention Morrowind because of course it's a good open world game. I'm asking for more recent examples.

 

[Varteras]

Name a few.

It's not a challenge or anything. I genuinely wanna know because I would gladly play more open world games like this but in a different genre. But don't mention Morrowind because of course it's a good open world game. I'm asking for more recent examples.

I just skimmed through and thought I saw people giving examples. I may be wrong. I don't personally have an opinion on it, just felt the need to add that caveat as I thought it was already being covered. I did want to chime in with that Druckmann article because it hit my mind as soon as I saw the thread. I skimmed to see if anyone mentioned it before I posted.

 

[Astral Dog]

Yeah i can't stand most open world games but unlike op i didn't find Elden Ring to be the exception

 

[killatopak]

You just run around a lifeless open world (doesn't feel alive, or like a simulation) and knock over animatronic NPCs as they stand perfectly still for eternity.

Fair enough but that’s like the typical souls game. You won’t see cities full of people interacting with each other in ANY souls game. Fromsoft or not that’s not their target audience. They typically feature a handful of very impactful NPC. It’s not like they lack people interacting with each other. There’s just less of them and it’s more about environmental story telling. For example in Volcano area. The golden soldiers are fighting the monsters there or Volcano manor is defending the area. There are even soldiers grieving the deaths of their own. In Caelid, Radahn’s soldiers are fighting the surrounding monsters like the huge dogs and you see the dead bodies in the battle. You can even stand back and allow them to kill each other for easy runes. Around Limgrave there's like a female bat thing singing around her group of bats in a lullaby manner.

You can put a rubber band around the duel thumbsticks, put some books on the X button, and the game doesn't care.

That’s like 99% of the games out there. Like I can't think of any other game that reacts differently. Can you give an example of a game that's different? Like even in ER something can happen when you leave out the game open. Someone can invade you and murder you.

 

[brian0057]

Open world games that don't suck have existed for decades.
Most devs don't do them because they're really hard to do.
Hence, the scarce number of them.

 

[Warablo]

Why is Elden Ring's world so good?

 

[kyussman]

You will have to forgive me because I didn't play Elden Ring but I have watched playthroughs and the same repeated copy and paste content that plagues open world games was all over it.You can't make a game that big without it I guess.

 

[sainraja]

I am not sure why people are trying to give ER credit for what BOTW did, but ignoring that, just imagine if you had 100+ games doing the same sh*t, you'd be asking for a break lol. People don't know what they want until it is right in front of them, but then they just want to indulge and ask for something **new** and when they get something remotely close to that, they want everyone else to just copy/paste it - rinse/repeat.

Yeah, I don't think you know what it is you are asking for... you don't want other games to be like ER. You are just looking for something completely fresh.

 

[Drizzlehell]

Why is Elden Ring's world so good?

Again, it's less about the world that FromSoft created and more about the philosophy of not holding the player's hand and letting him explore it however they want to.

 

[FunkMiller]

Don’t be silly, OP. That takes effort. You think the lazy cunts at Ubisoft are going to change their cookie cutter open world design? They can’t crank out multiple titles if they do that!

 

[Drizzlehell]

I am not sure why people are trying to give ER credit for what BOTW did, but ignoring that, just imagine if you had 100+ games doing the same sh*t, you'd be asking for a break lol. People don't know what they want until it is right in front of them, but then they just want to indulge and ask for something **new** and when they get something remotely close to that, they want everyone else to just copy/paste it - rinse/repeat.

Yeah, I don't think you know what it is you are asking for... you don't want other games to be like ER. You are just looking for something completely fresh.

I haven't played BOTW personally because I don't own a Nintendo console. I only know that it sold really well and people bring it up sometimes on lists of best open world games but beyond that, it doesn't seem like it was such a cultural milestone that people would talk about it everywhere all the time, possibly due to lack of multi-platform availability.

To me it just feels like Nintendo is living in its own world where they're happy with the success and the devoted fanbase that they have. But beyond that, I don't care about them and they don't care about me, and I'm perfectly fine with that arrangement.

 

[Raonak]

ER sucks ass. Only propped up by from fangirls.

And the open world was the worst part of Elden Ring.

 

[fermcr]

Although that just remains within the realms of hope when you hear about things like this:


No, let's not take cues from the most successful, the most critically acclaimed open world games of 2022, let's just scoff at it and criticize its design elements. Yeah, that makes sense.

This is why Ubisoft open world games, and every other game that follow the same formula, will always remain hollow, unimaginative, dull experiences that progressively erode my enthusiasm for video games as time goes on. Western devs need to loosen up and start putting more trust in player's agency and ability to discover the game on our own, instead of fussing over the nebulous content that they created for the game, and desperately trying to drag us by the collar to every corner of the map just to make sure that we're gonna see everything. Because in their arrogant assumption they think we're just too dumb to find certain things on our own.

And that's why most open world games fucking suck and I hate playing them. Yeah it's a bit of a hyperbolic statement because most of those games have some good shit in them that's tucked away on those giant maps, but it only makes it so much more frustrating that the element of discovery is just completely absent from those games. There's a reason why disabling the HUD in most open world games suddenly makes them 10 times more fun to play but the problem is that most of those game's design is tied to their quest markers and map icons. To the point where some of them become needlessly obtuse if you disable those HUD elements. It's an incredibly lazy design and more western devs should start copying the philosophy of Elden Ring.

I hope western devs don't follow Elden Ring.
Elden Ring sucks!

 

[Spukc]

Yeah elden ring played enough breath of the wild

 

[Ogbert]

Don’t be silly, OP. That takes effort. You think the lazy cunts at Ubisoft are going to change their cookie cutter open world design? They can’t crank out multiple titles if they do that!

To be fair, on the subject of lazy, at least Ubisoft optimise their games.

Or is the fact that, in order to get a stable frame rate, I have to play the PS4 version of ER on my PS5 another example of From’s magical subversion of expectations?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Fair enough but that’s like the typical souls game. You won’t see cities full of people interacting with each other in ANY souls game. Fromsoft or not that’s not their target audience. They typically feature a handful of very impactful NPC. It’s not like they lack people interacting with each other. There’s just less of them and it’s more about environmental story telling. For example in Volcano area. The golden soldiers are fighting the monsters there or Volcano manor is defending the area. There are even soldiers grieving the deaths of their own. In Caelid, Radahn’s soldiers are fighting the surrounding monsters like the huge dogs and you see the dead bodies in the battle. You can even stand back and allow them to kill each other for easy runes. Around Limgrave there's like a female bat thing singing around her group of bats in a lullaby manner.

So when I say "animatronic NPCs" I'm thinking about those Chuck E Cheese musicians...

In real life, their "bahavior" is triggered when you have your birthday party in that wierd little room. In Elden Ring, AI behavior is triggered when you get close enough.

The animatronics in Elden Ring do more interesting stuff (the things you described) but they're just as brain dead and predictable as the creepy picture you see above.

That’s like 99% of the games out there. Like I can't think of any other game that reacts differently. Can you give an example of a game that's different? Like even in ER something can happen when you leave out the game open. Someone can invade you and murder you.

Subnautica. The open world in Subnautica, a 2014 game, runs laps around the open world in Elden Ring.

Both games have idiot AI that can't see farther than 20ft, but in Subnautica it makes sense because fish being dumb with poor vision works thematically. Knights in full gear protecting a castle having the IQ of a fish...is jarring and pulls you out of immersion.

Subnautica is also a game that pushes back on the player and kills you if you don't react + prepare for it...which makes the world feel far more alive + interesting.

At a certain point, we have to recognize the bar has raised considerably and when modern AAA games don't come anywhere close to that bar, it should be noted. Everyone giving a pass to Elden Ring makes no sense. They feature that open world way too much for it to be that lame.

 

[GC_DALBEN]

ER is awesome, im replaying (RT PATCH) and im loving it all again.

 

[killatopak]

So when I say "animatronic NPCs" I'm thinking about those Chuck E Cheese musicians...

In real life, their "bahavior" is triggered when you have your birthday party in that wierd little room. In Elden Ring, AI behavior is triggered when you get close enough.

The animatronics in Elden Ring do more interesting stuff (the things you described) but they're just as brain dead and predictable as the creepy picture you see above.



Subnautica. The open world in Subnautica, a 2014 game, runs laps around the open world in Elden Ring.

Both games have idiot AI that can't see farther than 20ft, but in Subnautica it makes sense because fish being dumb with poor vision works thematically. Knights in full gear protecting a castle having the IQ of a fish...is jarring and pulls you out of immersion.

Subnautica is also a game that pushes back on the player and kills you if you don't react + prepare for it...which makes the world feel far more alive + interesting.

At a certain point, we have to recognize the bar has raised considerably and when modern AAA games don't come anywhere close to that bar, it should be noted. Everyone giving a pass to Elden Ring makes no sense. They feature that open world way too much for it to be that lame.

Yeah the game doesn't feature a scheduling system like say Skyrim that has specific behaviours that govern the AI. I do however prefer it due to the nature of game and how it is design. There's very little hand holding or quest markers for stuff so I'd like them to be a bit more predictable. Not that they are predictable. They aren't. Specific quest triggers immedietly change their location and aren't even told.

This is more of a preference thing for me. I get what you say though.

About Subnautica, again, I think it's all about how the game is design. Subnautica at its core is a survival game. There's more urgency baked into it due to resource management. This is why preparation is key. It is also designed for you to engage the world in a timely manner or risk the detriment of your goal and in certain modes your life.

I agree with how some enemies typically have narrow vision in Elden Ring. I don't know if there are lore implications as I have not delved into it but I do know how their mechanics work.

The thing is, some enemy types or variants in the game IS completely blind. They react to the world differently and that difference is sound. It's why the game has a stealth system and in a way, it's a method to emphasize the system and allow for certain build and items to synergize and work.

I won't ever disagree to you about raising the bar in games but sometimes I do feel like the roadblock to some of these is workload and time. You also have to consider this is a cross gen game so technological improvement to certain systems will not be available not to mention Fromsoft certain lack of proficiency.

 

[FunkMiller]

To be fair, on the subject of lazy, at least Ubisoft optimise their games.

Or is the fact that, in order to get a stable frame rate, I have to play the PS4 version of ER on my PS5 another example of From’s magical subversion of expectations?

Easy to optimise a game that you've been remaking for the past ten years

 

[Bernardougf]

Open World is exactly what drags elden ring down ... is From/Miyazaki worse game by far (not counting DS2) .. and I hope that not even From follow their open world "success" ...

And to the ER defense force, this is, of course, just my opinion ... the game is a financial and critical success, I finished 04 times and got the platinum.. so is by no means a bad game ... Miyazaki is incapable of doind a bad game it seems...

 

[Yoboman]

The actual open world isn't the problem for other open world games, it's the quest design

What Elden Ring got right was stripping away all side quests and only having the main quest have a quest marker. Everything else is stuff you organically find and don't need to travel the map to complete parts of the mission

RDR2 strongest parts are this as well. Its the side quests that are the weakest part.

 

[Yoboman]

Easy to optimise a game that you've been remaking for the past ten years

Lets not cast stones in a glass house

 

[FunkMiller]

Lets not cast stones in a glass house

I'll give From Software the credit for making ER an open world game, which was new for them

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

You want Western games that have better open world games to be inspired by a derivative?

a culture that promotes actual creativity and expression rather than just getting money and getting it fast

I always find it odd how gaming fans of JP seems to pretend Ubisoft games and similar are the primary open world games out there in the west when they aren't, and only SELECTIVELY go for those type of mainstream games, then compare those titles to a bunch of AA and A niche or lower selling japanese software (with a few AAA games too) to claim they have more diversity and creativity in a lopsided comparison.

 

[Zekra Dezivad]

They won't.

BOTW was a massive critical and commercial success and seemingly the only thing most open worlds devs got from it was to continue doing the Ubisoft formula but adding a glider.

Elden Ring will be the same. I expect them to add a horse that can jump or the repetitive dungeons instead of all the good aspects

Well, to be honest the glide mechanic existed already in many games. I was playing Sly Cooper 2013 last month and hell it has the paraglide too lol

 

[64bitmodels]

I always find it odd how gaming fans of JP seems to pretend Ubisoft games and similar are the primary open world games out there in the west when they aren't, and only SELECTIVELY go for those type of mainstream games, then compare those titles to a bunch of AA and A niche or lower selling japanese software (with a few AAA games too) to claim they have more diversity and creativity in a lopsided comparison.

cool but i never made a comparison beyond the cultures of both continents.

Even if the west has its fair share of indies which help creativity, they never really make it as high as the AAA titles unless they're published by a big publisher or blow up on the internet (that isn't guaranteed either.... Undertale was the most popular game on the internet from 2015-2017 and it only sold 1 million units.)

The simple fact of the matter is that creativity and artistic intent is put aside in America because the primary focus is MAKING MONEY. Whereas making money is a primary concern in Japan (AND OTHER COUNTRIES AS WELL) but isn't as important as letting the director/creator express themselves. It's why you get wacky AAA franchises in Japan like Kingdom Hearts, Parappa, Katamari Damacy and Metal Gear Solid which most western companies like Ubisoft and EA would immediately reject the idea of.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

cool but i never made a comparison beyond the cultures of both continents.

Even if the west has its fair share of indies which help creativity, they never really make it as high as the AAA titles

Neither do the Japanese indies.

The simple fact of the matter is that creativity and artistic intent is put aside in America because the primary focus is MAKING MONEY.

I mean you can pretend there isn't an endless list of Japaneses games having some of the same, or worse, practices of monetizing consumers and strategieis to strip money from people, but that's just not true at all.

Again, you're basically comparing (and generalizing) AAA Assassins Creed derivatives to smaller AA or less Japanese gams and saying they aren't primarily focusing on money which is just a bizarrely lopsided comparison.

Even your list of games is spread out across decades, (Also saying Ubisoft would reject MGS but accepted Splinter Cell is odd.) many of the current AAA japanese games, which would be a fair comparison to what you're referring to, are not much better than Ubisoft or EA.

In both areas the monetization declines as you go down from AAA. Which are the exact games you're bringing up for Japan, but not for the west, instead comparing those lower selling and more niche games, or games from 20 years ago (parappa) to modern Ubisoft and EA AAA games. Huh?

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Ehh even elden rings open world is the same repeated set points over and over with a few scattered mobs that are somewhat unique.

It's almost as if open world as a concept sucks.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Once again, a post that misses the point of what's being discussed here.

It's not about how the specific features are designed such as combat or traversal. It's not even about the contents of the open world map, which people often criticize about ER because it repeats certain dungeons or whatever. It is primarily about how western-developed OW games have a tendency to completely cover the map screen with icons that serve as a laundry list of things to do in order to get the 100% completion, even though it rarely serves any particular purpose other than giving the player an illusion that there's "CONTENT" in the game and they somehow get value out of their purchase by having to spend 250 hours plowing through it.

It's also about complete lack of faith in player's ability to figure out what to do next, and constantly dragging us along with omnipresent quest markers, quest trackers, compass widgets, and other shit like that. I can still remember having to figure out where I need to go in Morrowind by checking the name of the town in my journal and then following a road by reading literal road signs. The only other western game that actually had something like that in recent memory was Kingdom Come: Deliverance, while almost every other game simply pointed me in the right direction with a map marker and a big glowing compass arrow.

There's just no sense of discovery in modern open world games, and Elden Ring, even though it's not a perfect game by any stretch, at least shows enough restraint and trust in the player to allow us to discover stuff on our own without being blatantly told where to go all the time. That's what this thread, and the video, is about.

Someone hasn't played Ghostwire Tokyo lol.

 

[64bitmodels]

I mean you can pretend there isn't an endless list of Japaneses games having some of the same, or worse, practices of monetizing consumers and strategieis to strip money from people, but that's just not true at all.

yes. i can pretend there aren't greedy japanese games. but i didn't
hence why i noted that making money is a primary thing. hell in some cases like Square Enix and Konami it can consume their entire company. greedy japanese companies do exist & i call them out on their bullshit the same way i do western companies. I think that Square enix is the worst/most retarded company in gaming currently thanks to their idiocy with NFTs and they're japanese.

but do you honestly think a sheer passion project like Elden Ring would be approved by any of the big heads at EA or Ubisoft who think that singleplayer gaming is dead? Especially since it's a new IP which isn't licensed.

Again, you're basically comparing (and generalizing) AAA Assassins Creed derivatives to smaller AA or less Japanese gams and saying they aren't primarily focusing on money which is just a bizarrely lopsided comparison.

Kingdom Hearts and Metal Gear are not 'smaller AA' games, they're big budget gigantic IPs that are well known, to the point where Tetsuya Nomura and Hideo Kojima are some of the most well recognized names in gaming history. That's not AA.
Street Fighter is a wacky franchise too that'd easily be rejected by many western publishers for even simply being a fighting game.
Nier Automata is too out there and indie looking for most Western companies to even attempt.
Devil May Cry would make your average out of touch 50 year old shareholder cringe out of his mind.
FUCKING MARIO would likely have never existed if Miyamoto were pitching to Activision instead of Nintendo.
Those are some of the biggest games that come from Japan and they're all inherently extremely creative and out there- because the creators could express themselves in every single way, the character design, gameplay, art direction, music etc.

if you pitched the ideas of those franchises to many of the big Western Developers, they'd either reject it or mutilate it to the point where it's not even close to what you originally intended- because it's about MONEY.

 

[Touch fuzZy. get BizZay]

Good luck with that!

 

[Krathoon]

The thing is, you don't want every open world game to be a colossal pain in the ass like Elden Ring. The game is rewarding, but it is a bitch to play.

It is like an old school Dungeons and Dragon's game. Not everyone enjoys that. That is why modern D&D is easier.

There is a certain obnoxious design to Souls games. I get a kick out of it, but they are very time consuming and can get very grating.

 

[Krathoon]

What is great about Japanese games is that they love to get weird. They like high fantasy. Western developers want everything to be dark and gritty.

I would love to see some high fantasy come from the west.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Once again, a post that misses the point of what's being discussed here.

It's not about how the specific features are designed such as combat or traversal. It's not even about the contents of the open world map, which people often criticize about ER because it repeats certain dungeons or whatever. It is primarily about how western-developed OW games have a tendency to completely cover the map screen with icons that serve as a laundry list of things to do in order to get the 100% completion, even though it rarely serves any particular purpose other than giving the player an illusion that there's "CONTENT" in the game and they somehow get value out of their purchase by having to spend 250 hours plowing through it.

Lol, so the entire complaint that you, the OP and the goon in the video have is that western OW games show quest and POI markers on the mini-map?!?!

Are you fucking kidding me?

In Assassin's Creed Vahalla, you can turn them off completely and discover things naturally in the world; exactly the same as ER and BoTW. So right there you have idiotic misinformed complaints that aren't even rooted in facts.

In most other western OW games, the quest and POI markers don't appear from the outset. The unlock as you progress through the game.

But irrespective of that, you and your ilk fail to recognize that this whole shitty puerile argument is based on a highly subjective opinion that forcing the gamer to have to maintain a spreadsheet outside of the game just for them to remember where the side-quest quest-giver was, is inherently superior game design.... it's not... It's fucking awful for anyone who isn't in it for the "discovery"... but rather to enjoy the game and see all the content there is in it.

Again, ya'll fail to see that your opinion =/= objective truth.

Not everyone wants all quest and POI markers to be completely removed from OW game maps.
It would be fucking tedious as hell... It's not even a natural fit for every different type of OW game.

This brings me back to my original point....

The folks who have actually missed the point are you and your ilk. You think games should be designed specifically for you, and therefore OW game quest and POI design should be tailored around what you like specifically. You can't seem to comprehend that the wider gaming populace doesn't think the same as you, and neither do they want all OW games to emulate this absurd system for minimap markers from ER.

Why can't you simply be content that ER and BoTW do the things that you like? Those games exist and you can play them. Why must all other OW games copy those games?

Again, your arguments are incoherent because they're based on the faulty premise that everybody likes what you like, or that everybody even wants all OW games to include the same map marker design.... they don't.

 

[The Cockatrice]

Lol, so the entire complaint that you, the OP and the goon in the video have is that western OW games show quest and POI markers on the mini-map?!?!

Are you fucking kidding me?

In Assassin's Creed Vahalla, you can turn them off completely and discover things naturally in the world; exactly the same as ER and BoTW. So right there you have idiotic misinformed complaints that aren't even rooted in facts.

In most other western OW games, the quest and POI markers don't appear from the outset. The unlock as you progress through the game.

But irrespective of that, you and your ilk fail to recognize that this whole shitty puerile argument is based on a highly subjective opinion that forcing the gamer to have to maintain a spreadsheet outside of the game just for them to remember where the side-quest quest-giver was, is inherently superior game design.... it's not... It's fucking awful for anyone who isn't in it for the "discovery"... but rather to enjoy the game and see all the content there is in it.

Again, ya'll fail to see that your opinion =/= objective truth.

Not everyone wants all quest and POI markers to be completely removed from OW game maps.
It would be fucking tedious as hell... It's not even a natural fit for every different type of OW game.

This brings me back to my original point....

The folks who have actually missed the point are you and your ilk. You think games should be designed specifically for you, and therefore OW game quest and POI design should be tailored around what you like specifically. You can't seem to comprehend that the wider gaming populace doesn't think the same as you, and neither do they want all OW games to emulate this absurd system for minimap markers from ER.

Why can't you simply be content that ER and BoTW do the things that you like? Those games exist and you can play them. Why must all other OW games copy those games?

Again, your arguments are incoherent because they're based on the faulty premise that everybody likes what you like, or that everybody even wants all OW games to include the same map marker design.... they don't.

Its ok, he does this in every thread when someone brings a valid argument to his opinions "yoU mIssEd thE pOinT".

 

[OZ9000]

Or here's an idea - stop making open world games.

 

[mxbison]

Assassins Creed still sells very well.

Hogwarts Legacy is doing insane numbers.

Why would they?

Also the Elden Ring open world only works well for the whole "you against the world" thing. It lacks interactivity just like all the others.

 

[3liteDragon]

Generalizing "western games" as one single homogenous category of open-world games is both disingenuous and categorically incorrect, to the extent that it invalidates any point attempting to be made.

There are many different types of the western-developed open world game and the two cited early in the video, Horizon and AC: Valhalla both play so differently that I'm just going to go ahead and say that this goon who made this video didn't even play these games at all.

Then you have games like Skyrim, Fallout, The Witcher 3, and Cyberpunk.... not to mention fucking juggernauts like RDR2 and GTAV.

I'm sorry, I don't give a fuck how much you jizz yourself over ER and BoTW... RDR2 and GTAV are far faaaar better games in virtually every respect. But they're so different open-world games that it's like trying to compare apples to oranges.

That brings me to the crux of this issue... fucking idiots like the guy in the video in the OP who wholly fail to realize that the "open world" is not a fucking gaming genre. It's a type of level design. You can have "open world" action games, "open world" RPGs, "open world" adventure games, and "open world" puzzle games... heck even open-world hentai dating sims.

If you want to make an argument about open-world game design, you have to qualify it within a certain actual fucking game genre. As "open world" games as a terminology is so broad and diverse as to be wholly and entirely fucking meaningless. You have to make arguments about the actual level design in the context of the particular genre being discussed, as a good open-world level design for an RPG =/= a good open-world game design for an action game or puzzler.

ER and BoTW aren't some magical one-size fits all solution that every game should copy. And even if they did, then wouldn't all open-world games now really play the same, which would actualize the complaint about homogeneity in game world design?

So... the very things you're advocating for will effectuate the very thing you're bitching about.... funny that.

 

[tusharngf]

zelda and elden ring both were miles ahead of anything western developers can offer. I tried AC Oddessey and the combat was good but second game valhalla was a borefest. I don't think the west has that level of talent that these Japanese developers offer. Betheda made some good games but their engine,animations and combat sucks. All that is left is CDPR and we all know how they messed up the cyberpunk game.

 

[GymWolf]

Or we can have different type of open world for all the audiences because not everyone loves the EF formula, just saying...

 

[TheGodfather07]

I'm good with both types. You know what I hate though? Map icons galore. Ubisoft is the worst at this. It makes me stop playing as soon as I start.

 

[Drizzlehell]

Lol, so the entire complaint that you, the OP and the goon in the video have is that western OW games show quest and POI markers on the mini-map?!?!

Are you fucking kidding me?

In Assassin's Creed Vahalla, you can turn them off completely and discover things naturally in the world; exactly the same as ER and BoTW. So right there you have idiotic misinformed complaints that aren't even rooted in facts.

In most other western OW games, the quest and POI markers don't appear from the outset. The unlock as you progress through the game.

But irrespective of that, you and your ilk fail to recognize that this whole shitty puerile argument is based on a highly subjective opinion that forcing the gamer to have to maintain a spreadsheet outside of the game just for them to remember where the side-quest quest-giver was, is inherently superior game design.... it's not... It's fucking awful for anyone who isn't in it for the "discovery"... but rather to enjoy the game and see all the content there is in it.

Again, ya'll fail to see that your opinion =/= objective truth.

Not everyone wants all quest and POI markers to be completely removed from OW game maps.
It would be fucking tedious as hell... It's not even a natural fit for every different type of OW game.

This brings me back to my original point....

The folks who have actually missed the point are you and your ilk. You think games should be designed specifically for you, and therefore OW game quest and POI design should be tailored around what you like specifically. You can't seem to comprehend that the wider gaming populace doesn't think the same as you, and neither do they want all OW games to emulate this absurd system for minimap markers from ER.

Why can't you simply be content that ER and BoTW do the things that you like? Those games exist and you can play them. Why must all other OW games copy those games?

Again, your arguments are incoherent because they're based on the faulty premise that everybody likes what you like, or that everybody even wants all OW games to include the same map marker design.... they don't.

Wow, you're so angry. Chill out, lol.

Turning off quest markers or compass completely in Odyssey wasn't possible as far as I can remember, plus it wouldn't work anyway because the game is designed around them. Some quests will show you where to go or which NPC to talk to only with a quest marker because otherwise there are no other visual indicators within the game world and you can easily miss important stuff that way.

I didn't read the rest of your post because you clearly can't see past your own viewpoint to understand what I'm actually talking about, and you're just raging at me for no reason so I don't care.

 

[Forth]

RDR2 ans Elden Ring are so far ahead of BOTW that it's not even fair to compare them.
BOTW isn't as great as people think.

 

[RoadHazard]

Very few have tried to replicate what made BOTW so great (arguably ER itself is one of the few that have), so it doesn't seem like that's how it works.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

The actual open world isn't the problem for other open world games, it's the quest design

What Elden Ring got right was stripping away all side quests and only having the main quest have a quest marker. Everything else is stuff you organically find and don't need to travel the map to complete parts of the mission

RDR2 strongest parts are this as well. Its the side quests that are the weakest part.

Morrowind did that 20 years ago. The reason why games have quest markers is because players want them.

We will never know but I'd be interested how many gamers played ER with a wiki?

 

[Drizzlehell]

zelda and elden ring both were miles ahead of anything western developers can offer. I tried AC Oddessey and the combat was good but second game valhalla was a borefest. I don't think the west has that level of talent that these Japanese developers offer. Betheda made some good games but their engine,animations and combat sucks. All that is left is CDPR and we all know how they messed up the cyberpunk game.

Honestly, I think that there is a clear talent behind western games. I even made a thread once in which I gushed over the level of detail that was put into the world of AC Odyssey and the sheer number of quests that weren't just pointless collect-a-thons. Where those games falter in my opinion is their ability to create an actual sandbox that the player could explore organically without having to rely on compass or following quest threads that progress you through the sections of the map they way the designers intended.

Sure I guess you can just willfully ignore the icons on the screen and walk straight in random directions until you stumble dick-first into a bunch of quests that you weren't supposed to be doing for another few hours because your character is under-leveled and you're too early into the story. But that's not how exploring the world organically works, lol.

 

[StueyDuck]

What is great about Japanese games is that they love to get weird. They like high fantasy. Western developers want everything to be dark and gritty.

I would love to see some high fantasy come from the west.

I respect that is what you want.

but god could i not be further from that right now.

I am tired shitless of "Lord Zargeth in the keep of Minderwyre protects the stones of margolth, you brave warrior of the wonnock clan from graymire, are destined to be the hero for which is written in the destiny tabs of bloogenhuig" then you run around with swords killing spiders and people with deer skull heads

someone just give me a damn Pirate Open world that isn't some MMO playground social experience (also not that shit that Ubi is making, i don't want to be a damn boat i want to be a pirate) or Bully 2... Basically Rockstar give me more games i need you, this 9 year dev cycle thing is killing me. (but i'll forgive you when GTA6 comes out and sets a new standard for open worlds much like RDR2 and GTAV did prior)

 

[Hobbygaming]

I dropped this game after a while. I prefer having a more clear path in games where you can die a lot, like Demon Souls and Bloodborne I prefer these over Elden Ring

 

[Drizzlehell]

I respect that is what you want.

but god could i not be further from that right now.

I am tired shitless of "Lord Zargeth in the keep of Minderwyre protects the stones of margolth, you brave warrior of the wonnock clan from graymire, are destined to be the hero for which is written in the destiny tabs of bloogenhuig" then you run around with swords killing spiders and people with deer skull heads

someone just give me a damn Pirate Open world that isn't some MMO playground social experience (also not that shit that Ubi is making, i don't want to be a damn boat i want to be a pirate) or Bully 2... Basically Rockstar give me more games i need you, this 9 year dev cycle thing is killing me. (but i'll forgive you when GTA6 comes out and sets a new standard for open worlds much like RDR2 and GTAV did prior)

Are you kidding? The Keep of The Minderwyre is my favorite!

 

[Ogbert]

Why are we cherry picking one Japanese studio and comparing it the worst Western ones?

Skyrim is flat out better and more magical than ER. It’s older and the combat sucks balls, but if we’re talking about going wherever you want and getting lost in a world, it shits all over anything Japan has put out.