How do you make an open world without the usual design problems?

SantaC said:

How do you make an open world adventure/rpg without lots of empty space and reptitive content?

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More budget.

That's really it. It takes budget to make things. If you want less repetitive content you need to make it.

I make it just the same, just market/sell it to the people that don't have a problem with it. :))

We'd need to completely change our approach to open world design. Right now it's bigger = better rather than designing the world to be as big as it needs to be.

Stop trying to make every game 40+ hours.

You just make a bigger effort. There is currently a standard cost-effective formula to produce open world rpgs with the usual design problems. Making an effort to solve these problems cost time and money,which very few companies are willing to give,since most of these games sell good anyway

I don't think empty space or even to some degree repetitive content are flaws. Empty space helps an open world feel real, having lots of gameplay means that it'll be repetitive, the trick is making it fun to repeat.

If you're really trying to avoid these things, the sensible course is to not make an open world game.

Empty space is crucial to good open world design. I know some go overboard, like Origins' huge deserts, but completely eliminating it doesn't seem like the right move. Sometimes you just want to be lost in the world. I wish in general though that devs focused more on super detailed hubs.

you focus on depth rather than breadth

More budget, more time, bigger teams. (FFXV was probably rebooted multiple times and Zelda as well)

You have to copy Breath of the Wild.

Money, time, and talent. Also players are coming around on empty spaces so you're not gonna see that go away any time soon.

I also feel like I've never played a perfect open world game with no issues, and I don't think it's ever gonna happen.

You need awesome traversal mechanics so you're never bothered to stop in one of the boring, empty areas.

I think Breath of the Wild is how you do it.

More time and money is the answer. The benefit of sequels is that now that the basics are done they can improve on content. I expect big things from Horizon 2, Zelda, GOW 2, etc. sequels.

Don't make an open world adventure/rpg with lots of empty space and repetitive content.

Phantom Thief said:

I think Breath of the Wild is how you do it.

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Even if you love BotW and it's empty space, you can;t deny that it has a ton of repetitive content. Just look at pretty much every side quest. I am explicitly talking about side quests that the game calls side quests, not stuff like the shrine quests.

The framework of BotW is probably the way to go in the future, but even then filling that framework with nothing but quality content won't be easy or cheap.

Kinsei said:

Even if you love BotW and it's empty space, you can;t deny that it has a ton of repetitive content. Just look at pretty much every side quest. I am explicitly talking about side quests that the game calls side quests, not stuff like the shrine quests.

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By definition every game has repetition. Repetition is what a video game is. It's about making that repetition enjoyable to the player, which I feel BotW does far better than most other games of its ilk.

Small open world with 2 or 3 main characters, were each one explore a different zone and interact with their campaigns.
6 or 8 hours of Campaign, the town is focused in the areas that the characters have to visit instead lots of empty spaces or areas that you won't use.
Thinking about it is a mix or the Getaway and Deus Ex/The Last of Us. Since the campaign is short the focus would be in different approaches to complete objectives, but without perks/level up. Just the player creativity.

Hell, I just want another fallout new Vegas in the end.

Edit: the be even better, the game will be short but could be like True Crime 1, if you lose a mission you get a different path.

Empty space isn't a flaw per se.

I don't think repetitive content and open spaces are a problem actually.

If you have an unlimited budget, you hire thousands of artists, writers, and scenario designers to fill your giant world with bespoke Stuff. Since you don't have an unlimited budget, you either accept the repetition, shrink the world Warren Spector style, or go all in on dynamic systems-driven design (STALKER and Shadow of Mordor/War made interesting stabs at this).

Like Tomb Raider does it. Not technically an "open world," but rather hubs connected WITHOUT loading screens between them. Thus it feels like an open world, and your traversal is never interrupted. The hub areas allow devs to concentrate on their design more in-depth and then connect them at the end!

Now they just gotta learn to peel back on the collectathon aspects.

CDPR managed the best so far with Witcher 3, they have a whole departement dedicated to designing quests and I think thats what you would need. Zelda defenitley had the better open world but it was very samey doing things in it.

Kill minimaps and quest markers.

But since that is unlikely to happen:
- good writing can make repetitive content endlessly interesting (The Witcher 3)
- diversions that aren't pointless collect-a-thons are excellent for worldbuilding (Yakuza 0 food and drinks)

People should learn from Yakuza. A district can feel larger and filled with content than an empty kingdom.

Some steps you can take:
- Smaller world
- Large world, but faster movement options
- Less content, but more substantial such

Stop thinking about it as problems.

Make it more dense like Shenmue and Yakuza.

Phantom Thief said:

By definition every game has repetition. Repetition is what a video game is. It's about making that repetition enjoyable to the player, which I feel BotW does far better than most other games of its ilk.

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I wouldn't call stuff like "collect 10 *insert item here*" "Bring me *insert weapon here*" and "Kill these generic enemies you've been fighting the entire game" enjoyable repetition. In fact, I'd call it generic open world filler that pretty much every game in the genre has.

Empty space isn't a bad thing in open world games IMO, the bad thing is feeling like you have to fill the empty space with a ton of useless, meaningless shit.

I want someone to take what Firewatch did, and blow it out huge. Give you a 'world', and your exploration and traversal is entirely as it would be alone in a mysterious area. No maps, you make the map, based on notable geographical things, line of sight, etc. Journey had this incredibly simple idea. There's a mountain right in front of you, run towards it for two hours, you will get there. Now it's in no way an open world, but that concept can work just the same.

BotW just encourages you to get from tower to tower to sync the map. Yeah, you can see some shrines, but given the ones visible from the towers, you might as well just have them unlock with the tower sync anyway, it's literally just making you look around with a scope, there's no skill or anything compelling there. It's entirely pointless for those specific shrines.

No maps, no 'syncing', no dedicated towers. Just here's a world, enjoy.

I mean there are no actual solutions to what you see is a content and variety issue, there's just a multitude of ways to tackle the challenge. What are we classifying unique as? Unique mechanically? Unique narrative applied to mechanically tasks?

Make the world smaller and deeper instead of bigger and shallower. The problem with modern open worlds is that they're so focused on scale they lose the minutiae. They forget that if you're in an open world you have to spend time GOING THROUGH it, and most of these games don't give you anything interesting to do while going from activity to activity, and the sheer size of the maps lends itself to repetitive activities as well.

A smaller map with more density allows the developers to put more time into fine-tuning the details of the world, and it allows them a smaller amount of space in which they can put more unique content - instead of 300 recurrences of the same four events or activities, they could do 50 or 60 more unique activities that make better use of the gameplay mechanics and the world and flesh things out in a more meaningful way.

To me BOTW is the one that fixed them. Don't just make "Open world game: Progress Quest Origins/Revelations/Chronicles" over and over. Have a clear design vision informing the world layout, don't just have it be a big sandbox full of 'content' like it's WoW.

Lots of these games feel like MMOs now but without meaningful endgame after the content grind. MMOs have that excuse, that the raids and group content fulfill the reward part of the grind (imo) but many open world games just don't. You grind for the very spread out story (MGSV, FFXV)

You take the design philosophy of something like Zelda: A link to the past or Baldur's Gate and do your best to bring that entire(keyword) experience to a 3rd or first person camera. If you cut corners people will know. Also it's okay for it to not be 80 hours.

The most important thing to me though, above all else, is to make a world so memorable that you barely need a map. A lot of current games fail at this.

You don't. The secret is, people like that stuff. I love mindless checkless while I put my headphones in and listen to podcasts and YouTube or music.

The only thing developers can do is cut the check list type content and leave only the meaningful story based side quests. But then the game would only take 25 hours to complete rather than 50-75.

Kinsei said:

We'd need to completely change our approach to open world design. Right now it's bigger = better rather than designing the world to be as big as it needs to be.

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I really don't think that's how MGS V and BOTW have been designed.
They have been designed with how much interactivity you can have with the world, thanks to how it's level is designed and thanks to the wonderful physics of both games.
BOTW's world is huge. But it's world have been praised for how much things you can do and find everywhere. The whole world is designed with a lot of clues in mind. Like, this tree is suspect : there's something here, etc etc...
I think both MGS V and BOTW were totaly right with how they designed their open world. A huge sandbox that gives you a lot of options in order to take down your ennemies.

alr1ght said:

Stop trying to make every game 40+ hours.

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Pretty much this. People shot on any game these days that'sdoesnt have a tag line of 40 hoursworth if content.

Some of the best most loved games in history can be beat in under 6 hours.

I don't see "empty space" necessarily as a big problem. The real world is full of dull, empty space too.

It only becomes a problem when the empty space doesn't lead to anywhere interesting and it's just there as a filler. For example, in Breath of the Wild it often feels like there's something cool at the end of the road. But others just feel useless.

The problem is that most devs either don't have the budget/staff to take on such a task, and the one's that do usually come from publishers that like to play it safe and have titles ready for the holidays.

Breathe of the Wild and Final Fantasy XV are about as unique as you're going to get and even they could probably benefit from having their maps be half the size.

Anyone saying BOTW has never tried to 100% the game lol

SantaC said:

Why isnt it? I want to explore a world that has unique findings. Open spaces is not the same as empty spaces.

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Empty spaces as well. The problem with a world that is literally full / without empty space (what's your definition here btw?) is that there is nowhere to catch a breath, take in the atmosphere, enjoy the calm and quiet. I love just riding around in a game like Breath of the Wild, changing my destination last minute because I saw something appear in the distance etc. etc. Something I can't do when there is no open space.

It's called an 'open' world for a reason. You need to have some room in between events, locations, cities etc., if at all just for having a believeable world.

ckareset said:

Anyone saying BOTW has never tried to 100% the game lol

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You mean like find and 'consume' all the content? But you don't need to do that (not supposed to even)

ckareset said:

Anyone saying BOTW has never tried to 100% the game lol

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100%-ing games is frustrating in general, open world or not. BotW provides korok seeds at every corner so any player regardless of where they are can upgrade their inventory, collecting all of them is a feat but it's unrewarding and I don't think it should be the goal of someone who just wants to enjoy the world. Searching every nook and cranny for all 900 korok seeds seems antithetical to what the game wants you to do, as opposed to the more managable 120 shrines which gives a proper reward.

In response to the OP, I haven't played enough open-world games to think of it as a problem, but recently playing through Morrowind and having to actually read the journal and figure out where to go without quest markers, especially compared to Skyrim, actually got me more invested in the world, though I can imagine this being frustrating for larger and larger games.

Phantom Thief said:

I think Breath of the Wild is how you do it.

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no, it isn´t.

Korok seeds stop being fun because after a few you know what you will get- a seed. The shrines while having unique layouts reuse the same mechanics over and over and even have direct copies with the tests of strength. exploration is harmed because you know what you will find: shrine number XY. The beasts look all the same inside, sporting same mechanics.

the sidequests are standard fare where the wheels fall off quickly. the physics stuff which you can do in the world stops being exciting after a few hours. the enemy variety isn´t up to par for such a big game, you just find too little variation in combat. the combat itself isn´t exactly fun. you even have copied bossfights in the DLC.

and that is just off the top of my head...would be also the reason why i can´t for the life of me understand the praise of this game, there are so many parts lacking that the hyperbole surrounding this game is just too much.

the one thing i give this game are the traversal mechanics via climbing and flying off from vantage points. that is something other open world games should work on to get it on the same level. the rest was no template for other open worlds because it provided the same repetitiveness than games like Mad Max or Ubisoft efforts or other modern open worlds. you have a handful of good stuff which is plastered all over the whole game like with a stamp. it does nothing better than other games in that regard.