Wish more Open World's would have a better sense of vertical scale

[Deleted member 33533]

It's the logical conclusion if you ignore everything but that one single point.



I mean you seem to have jumped onto the argument by ignoring everything but one simple point. Scale only works when everything works together not just one single thing. I feels more like your trying to make some: "Gotcha! Ha see how you were WRONG!?" then actually trying to make some different point.

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I don't know why you feel the need to cast my argument in this cynical light. It's not a "gotcha." I disagree with your main point and am offering a counter argument. I don't need you to change your opinion. It's an opinion as was mine.

And I didn't ignore your point, in fact, I addressed it head on and disagreed with it. The entire point of my responses to you is that I disagree with your idea of verticality and what creates that sense of scale. I think where you get lost here is that you seem to only be accepting discussion on the basis that the person already agrees with your idea of verticality. Like I first must accept your view point of what gives games a sense of verticality and the discussion only starts at which games we think meet your idea. If that's what you want, fine, but I don't really see what the issue is with disagreeing with the premise of your thread. That's discussion.

 

[HBK]

You know I've seen Elex mentioned a few times in this thread. Is it any good?

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It's a good game. Which means most people won't like it.

It's an excellent RPG at its core, in an EuroJank packaging.

The open world is the second best I've ever played (Xeno X tops it), the open questing is nice, and they nailed the zero to hero formula (as always). It's just very janky.

 

[Kalentan]

I don't know why you feel the need to cast my argument in this cynical light. It's not a "gotcha." I disagree with your main point and am offering a counter argument. I don't need you to change your opinion. It's an opinion as was mine.

And I didn't ignore your point, in fact, I addressed it head on and disagreed with it. The entire point of my responses to you is that I disagree with your idea of verticality and what creates that sense of scale. I think where you get lost here is that you seem to only be accepting discussion on the basis that the person already agrees with your idea of verticality. Like I first must accept your view point of what gives games a sense of verticality and the discussion only starts at which games we think meet your idea. If that's what you want, fine, but I don't really see what the issue is with disagreeing with the premise of your thread. That's discussion.

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My whole thing is that you can use terrain that isn't scalable by the player to help convey vertical scale. It doesn't need to be in the background, it can be in the foreground too, it's just the example I used had the mountains (just one example of conveying vertical scale) in the surrounding area, the background. It's not as if you can't get close, it's just you can't climb. But that's just current gen, who knows what next gen will hold, realistic mountains might be very easy to not only make but even possible for players to scale.

No one wants this stuff to be 1 to 1, maybe some VR stuff but in normal games that would be unreasonable.

 

[KrillinLikeAVillan]

Death stranding fucking nailed it, crossing mountain ranges feels epic even more so than in breath of the wild, carefully plotting out routes, getting blinded by snow storms, placing ladders and climbing anchors, making sure you precious cargo doesn't go flying while nervously keeping an eye on your dwindling stamina and batteries, dodging falling boulders, babysitting lou, and doing rad stunts while riding your floating carrier (the best sidekick of 2019, come at me) on the way down, i spent a ton of time in the mountains on foot even after i got access to faster traversal options, as somebody who as done a fair bit of mountaineering irl i think it's the best representation of mountaineering i have seen in a videogame.

Just look at that magnificent behemoth.

 

[Kalentan]

Death stranding fucking nailed it, crossing mountain ranges feels epic even more so than in breath of the wild, carefully plotting out routes, getting blinded by snow storms, placing ladders and climbing anchors, making sure you precious cargo doesn't go flying while nervously keeping an eye on your dwindling stamina and batteries, dodging falling boulders, babysitting lou, and doing rad stunts while riding your floating carrier (the best sidekick of 2019, come at me) on the way down, i spent a ton of time in the mountains on foot even after i got access to faster traversal options, as somebody who as done a fair bit of mountaineering irl i think it's the best representation of mountaineering i have seen in a videogame.

Just look at that magnificent behemoth.

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Honestly better example than my main post. That is exactly what I want more of. That can be scaled by the player and looks far more realistic in design and size.

 

[spam musubi]

I wish for a sci-fi game that takes place in a massive city that's expanded vertically to crazy extents, going above the clouds. That would be so cool.

 

[KrillinLikeAVillan]

I really liked the mountains around Kaer Morhen, but i instantly got an urge to climb them all, death stranding let's you climb everything you see except the areas around the border of the map.

Honestly better example than my main post. That is exactly what I want more of. That can be scaled by the player and looks far more realistic in design and size.

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The sense of scale and place in death stranding is brilliant, i really hope the pc version has vr support, i doubt it will but it would be great to see those beautifully crafted environments in 3d.

 

[N.47H.4N]

Death Stranding has the best sense of verticality I ever saw,climbing the mountains and when you are at the top is like nothing else in the market.

 

[Supreme Leader Galahad]

BoTW, Death Stranding, Gravity Rush 2, Horizon Zero Dawn, Xenoblade X, Arkham Knight are games that give some good sense of scale, did i miss any?

 

[Barrel Cannon]

One of my dream games is an open world cyberpunk city divided into three parts with huge buildings stretching through all three sections:
The ugly bottom, dark, dirty, poor, not a lot of sunlight reaches this part of the city because it is covered by the streets that run through the middle (vertically) section of the city.
The middle part of the city would look like your typical cyberpunk city during the day or night.
The upper part of the city would look like something from the Netflix series Altered Carbon, top parts of buildings reaching out of the clouds. (clouds separate the middle and upper part of the city)

You could travel by flying cars or elevators that would let you see the whole city while going up or down.

Just imagine riding the elevator from the middle part to the upper part and breaking through the clouds.

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Sounds like an idea for a bioshock game or something in the Alita universe

 

[Kaz Mk II]

First post wins Again

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Man I need to replay this game.

 

[KrillinLikeAVillan]

BoTW, Death Stranding, Gravity Rush 2, Horizon Zero Dawn, Xenoblade X, Arkham Knight are games that give some good sense of scale, did i miss any?

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Spiderman did a great job when it comes to scale of cityscapes.

 

[rusty chrome]

Death stranding fucking nailed it, crossing mountain ranges feels epic even more so than in breath of the wild, carefully plotting out routes, getting blinded by snow storms, placing ladders and climbing anchors, making sure you precious cargo doesn't go flying while nervously keeping an eye on your dwindling stamina and batteries, dodging falling boulders, babysitting lou, and doing rad stunts while riding your floating carrier (the best sidekick of 2019, come at me) on the way down, i spent a ton of time in the mountains on foot even after i got access to faster traversal options, as somebody who as done a fair bit of mountaineering irl i think it's the best representation of mountaineering i have seen in a videogame.

Just look at that magnificent behemoth.

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100% truth.

 

[PancakeBurglar]

First post wins Again

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Monolith Soft made this with last gen tech on a AA budget, they are clearly in a league of their own when it comes to world design.

 

[KrillinLikeAVillan]

I haven't gotten past the second area yet of Death Stranding (Chapter 3? I think) but I've been meaning to continue it. But yes, from the bit of it I have played it does this well.

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Keep going, chapter 3 is a bit of a slog but the game picks up speed in chapter 4, the second area is huge, you can go to the mountains whenever you want but the story takes you there around chapter 6, the mountain range is a lot bigger than it looks and there is a ton of stuff to do there, and it's all so damn pretty.

I fully understand why some people disliked death stranding, but i really liked it, planning deliveries and just trekking around these amazing landscapes really appealed to my inner lone wolf, i also liked the plot, it's a bat-shit insane mess but an unique entertaining bat-shit insane mess.

 

[More_Badass]

First post wins Again

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Why did this never get a Switch version?

 

[falcondoc]

I think OP is conflating vertical exploration and to-scale mountains, which certainly aren't the same thing.

 

[Kalentan]

I think OP is conflating vertical exploration and to-scale mountains, which certainly aren't the same thing.

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No. Just using mountains as a prime example of a good way to convey it. However obviously stuff like buildings in Spider-Man, Arkham and so on are the primary way to do that there as well.

Also never said to-scale.

 

[whassupbun]

Some people prefer 1 and the 2 games are a continuing story (although also work as standalones). 1 is also pretty short, especially if you focus on the main story, so if you're interested I'd say start from the beginning. Vita Gravity Rush 1 is one of the best games on the system and I've heard the remaster on PS4 is very good as well.

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Thanks for the advice. I have Gravity 1 for the PS4 still unopened. Will make time to play it before PS5 rolls around.

I wish for a sci-fi game that takes place in a massive city that's expanded vertically to crazy extents, going above the clouds. That would be so cool.

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That's what I hoped Star Wars 1313 was going to be. Or the cancelled Prey 2, it looked so promising. With the success of Jedi Fallen Order, I hope one of those two games will be resurrected.

 

[Yarbskoo]

Xenoblade and Gravity Rush are great examples.

 

[LilScooby77]

BOTW thread.

 

[Ehoavash]

Why did this never get a Switch version?

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Could be many reasons. it was on the Wii U which the game used the touchscreen gamepad for many features and porting that to the switch can't be an easy task since Monolithsoft are busy helping with breath of the wild 2, their own New game and Xenoblade 1 Remastered which was probably was a lot easier to port since no gamepad features lastly it was less well received than other xeno games cause it's focus wasn't on the story but mostly on exploration something xeno fans didn't expect or liked.... I loved the game though exploration was amazing

 

[chrisPjelly]

In terms of climbable shit? 100 percent

In terms of level design? I.e. a city having an underground and multiple floors). Ehhh. Borderlands 3 kind of turned me off from that tbh. I'm sure there's a right way to do it, but it seems a bit tough to manage

 

[francium87]

Crackdown 3 was almost worth it alone for getting to max level agility, and then, truly, flying.

The world was extremely vertical, and climbing up to get orbs in the main selling point of the game, but sadly too empty. I may be the few that still want a CD4.

 

[TheKeyPit]

Sounds like an idea for a bioshock game or something in the Alita universe

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Imagine you could move between a city underwater, on land and in the sky.

 

[FFNB]

Gravity Rush 1 and 2 are both verticality: the game. I can't sing the praises of that series enough. I wish more people had supported it, because Kat deserved better. Hands down one of the best games on the Vita, and the PS4 remaster and sequel were excellent. Such a delightful game. But yeah, OP, it's all about verticality in that one. Soaring around the environments is immensely satisfying.

Speak for yourself. I spent a lot of time just perched on hundreds of meters tall skyscrapers, looking down at all the ant people and mini toy cars below. It actually gave me goose bumps once in a while, because in real life I am a little scared of heights.

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It was pretty intense booting up Spider-Man PS4 and using the PSVR headset to play the game on the 163" virtual screen. Jumping off of a building and diving to the ground actually gave me a brief moment of a pit in my stomach. Since the screen was so huge in the VR environment, everything felt so much more massive in scale. Now I need to boot up Gravity Rush and play it on the virtual big screen too. lol

 

[Deleted member 41638]

Ghost Recon Wildlands

 

[FFNB]

If you have GTAV, playing it with close third person or (even better) first person really gives you an epic sense of scale when you're going up Mt Chilliad or hanging out in downtown Los Santos.

Some of the people I play with, like ExitPlanetDust and Haribokart will just goof around and go on hikes / offroading / etc. where we take photos and stuff, because the scale and vistas are so damn epic.

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As someone who's lived in Los Angeles for the last 20+ years, I'm always so blown away by how well GTAV executes the feeling of Los Angeles. Obviously, it's not a 1:1 recreation, but the layout of the geography/locations of things is fantastic. Like, there was a mission in story mode where we were told to go to downtown Los Santos, and i just drove there, without even needing the GPS, because of how the location of DTLS is very, very similar to the location of DTLA, so I just knew what direction to go to. I had those moments repeatedly while playing the game. It got LA without being LA. So weird. I kind of want to reinstall it just to dick around and take in the sights. It really is gorgeous, and to keep things on topic, the scale, not just horizontally, but vertically is also really good.

 

[CaptainK]

I think BOTW's vertical scale is perfect. Feels like an accomplishment when you reach the tallest peaks, but not completely devastating when you fall into the deepest canyons lol. Accidentally slipping off or getting punted off a cliff is part of the experience.

 

[Multiverse Moo]

As someone who's lived in Los Angeles for the last 20+ years, I'm always so blown away by how well GTAV executes the feeling of Los Angeles. Obviously, it's not a 1:1 recreation, but the layout of the geography/locations of things is fantastic. Like, there was a mission in story mode where we were told to go to downtown Los Santos, and i just drove there, without even needing the GPS, because of how the location of DTLS is very, very similar to the location of DTLA, so I just knew what direction to go to. I had those moments repeatedly while playing the game. It got LA without being LA. So weird. I kind of want to reinstall it just to dick around and take in the sights. It really is gorgeous, and to keep things on topic, the scale, not just horizontally, but vertically is also really good.

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I've never lived in LA, but been there many times over the years for work and for love (LUL) and yeah, I also like that they stuck to using landmarks for locations so that I seldom have to use the GPS to go to places. In fact, I like to play without the minimap often and just reference the pause-menu map or what someone is saying with their voice to get somewhere. Playing in VR on the PC version was legitimately awesome, though I failed to hit Mt Chiliad when I was trying it out.

Some of my recent screens to show off scale (PS4 version):

 

[FFNB]

I've never lived in LA, but been there many times over the years for work and for love (LUL) and yeah, I also like that they stuck to using landmarks for locations so that I seldom have to use the GPS to go to places. In fact, I like to play without the minimap often and just reference the pause-menu map or what someone is saying with their voice to get somewhere. Playing in VR on the PC version was legitimately awesome, though I failed to hit Mt Chiliad when I was trying it out.

Some of my recent screens to show off scale (PS4 version):

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Awesome shots! The scale of the game is so good. I haven't played it on PC in VR, but I imagine that's quite a feeling. Playing No Man's Sky in PSVR still blows me away with the scale, especially when you're in your ship flying over a massive planet, or entering the atmosphere of a new one. There was this one planet I found that was like, 90% water, and I flew around for ages trying to find a piece of land to land on. The VR in that game is so good. Looking around my cockpit for a spot of land was such a cool feeling.

 

[ThreepQuest64]

It's not only mountains, it's the whole world design that often simply doesn't feel intricate, like you can travel almost straight in one line to another point except for some occasional turns. But having huge rivers you can't cross, untraversable lands, bush and swamp lands, unscalable mountains, and other structures, that's really rare. I always think about it when playing linear games like Uncharted, The Last of Us, Tomb Raider, A Plague Tale, etc. where you really just see a tiny fraction of a region and where it takes so time to reach your destination.

I wish future open world games would feel bigger in scale and authenticity instead of just making a big, accessable world where you can go straight into one direction for 20 minutes without thinking and casually passing two climate zones, five regional borders and calling that a huge open world.

 

[dirtyjane]

I wish future open world games would feel bigger in scale and authenticity instead of just making a big, accessable world where you can go straight into one direction for 20 minutes without thinking and casually passing two climate zones, five regional borders and calling that a huge open world.

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Kenshi did this, it's not a graphical powerhouse but traversal through the different biomes is hard and punishing in a believable way.

 

[TheRed]

Cyberpunk is supposed to be addressing this but mainly in a city environment. I hope it nails it.

 

[Murfield]

BotW did this marvellously. I'm thinking particularly of those twin mountain peaks with a river running between them. Just fascinating.

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I think as well the addition of hypothermia helped in making mountains proper obstacles. There is a hypothermia mod for skyrim that I really enjoy, as it makes it way more immersive.

 

[Oregano]

Felt the need to bump this thread because I came across this classic Xenoblade X gif: