That implies that other devs have not found a way to visually stimulate players with interesting poi. It comes with the territory of open world games.
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RTTP : Zelda BOTW is now the gold standard for level design in open world Fantasy games
- Thread starter Toriko
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Maybe that's right, or they didn't reach the same level as the Aonuma/Fujibayashi team when implementing this. At least is how I feel, I can't think of another open world game that is making me adventure and explore the same way BotW does.
I get that. But in the spirit of the OPs topic, it was clearly about the physical world itself and how it encourages exploration. Realistically all open world games and any narrative game that allows the player to go off the rails, so to speak, suffers from not matching up to the narrative. How many times can you go ctotchke hunting dining world ending or high crisis time in narratives? Pretty much all.
Completely agree. After finding the same thing over and over... it got monotonous. The world is also barren as fuck. The rest of the game was pretty lacking, and saddled the player with bullshit like the weapon system.
You can bypass that part completely with your original stamina and hearts ;)
I agree that the sidequests are lacking (I didn't even complete all of them, but I explored all the regions and completed all the Shrines) but the NPC density in the game is perfect for me.
Every time I found some NPC it felt like an interesting event, something unique.
Imagine being attacked, giving money to some blind man or sucking someone's leg poison EVERY time you walk a few meters from camp... at the long term all these events lose all interest and become "another scripted event".
The funny part is that I skipped this entirely and entered Zora's Domain from the mountains above in my second playthrough. I actually thought that linear section was boring and too restricted. I felt like it dragged by the end of it.
I kinda agree there. I sort've just wish there were more towns?
The beauty of the game is just this, how it lets you approach anything from any angle at any time.
The traversal and sandbox system were great, but the open world itself(i.e. what you're discovering) is nothing remarkable at all. Simple and often samey shrines + korok seeds.(same enemies, etc.) It still works for the game but I don't see it as some gold standard that all open world games should follow. I preferred Witcher's world and even RDR2's world in a lot of ways.
You can't say something should be the gold standard for level design when it doesn't do a good job at filling its level - which is half the battle. The actual geometry engineering in BotW is certainly a standard. But that is specific. And HZD or Witcher 3 or even Skyrim, manage to do a much better job of filling their open worlds, even if their geometries aren't as intricately thought out/engineered.
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That does not imply that at all. It just implies that BOTW does it better than most other games.
I think Fallout 3/4 are good examples of what I'm talking about. The physical design of the world, the aesthetics, the entire feel bears out the narrative of lawless, irradiated, post-nuclear wasteland. It's dense and tightly knit, with a lot of things hidden underground and inside buildings and for me that's Bethesda's real strength. Like BotW, there's always something just 'over there' inviting you to go check it out, but unlike BotW, when I get there, I'll find something that feels wholly consistent with the wider experience (janky animations nonwithstanding) or something super valuable hidden away.
A couple more towns would be good, and maybe populating more some of the really empty areas (Nebra and the Gerudo mountains are the most boring zones on the map IMO).
The best part is that the game expects that you might do this and so you get to Zora's Domain and you met Sidon there instead.
Haha yup. It has a lot of that going on. For example if you go to a Divine Beast without first having gone to Impa, you get a cutscene with Zelda telepathically explaining what a Divine Beast is the first time you encounter one.The best part is that the game expects that you might do this and so you get to Zora's Domain and you met Sidon there instead.
Pretty crazy conclusion to come to because I find a videogame world to be empty.
This was actually something I didn't notice until my second playthrough because in my first one I went straight from the Plateau to clearing Vah Naboris before even stepping foot in Kakariko. I'm curious to see how Impa might react if you were to free all the Divine Beasts and then talk to her for the first time.
I mean again, it's like saying Horizon does frustum culling better than most other games. One aspect nintendo really needs to work on is side quests because they're hella behind in that regard.
She explains the history, then says you've already freed the beasts, so you should go bail the princess out now.
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One is tech and the other is design. I am not sure why you are comparing the two. It is absolutely possible for one game to design an open world that increases the sense of discovery better than another game.
The thing is, thanks to the traversal options in BotW, the great use of points of interest gains another new meaning in the game.
It's no the same at all to see that mountain and walk through the pre-defined (even if multiple) paths that lead to its summit, that creating a path using the freedom the game gives you.
You're just making me want to replay the game again. I didn't know this because I would always go to Kakariko at least once before I got to a Divine Beast so I could buy the Sheikah outfit and I would always talk to Impa while I was there.
I disagree entirely. The world was beautiful but pointless. There was almost nothing to find in it in terms of cool unique locations, and finding the exact same useless gems and mediocre weapons in every single treasure chest I opened made me question why I even bothered with the game at all.
Hyrule Castle was my favorite part. Pretty much everything else just felt like scale for the sake of scale.
Hyrule Castle was my favorite part. Pretty much everything else just felt like scale for the sake of scale.
There should have been a cutscene where if you go straight to the castle at the start, the King's spirit shows up and is like "So... you really didn't listen to me at all, huh?"
Not better than Witcher 3 for me. Lacks the intriguing caves and unique things.
It's full of initial intrigue, like the forest where it's always stormy and thundrous. Then you actually go there and it's not really that insightful or interesting, and the puzzle of it is shoved in your face killing its mysterious qualities in order to make some cookie-cutter gamification.
The sense of scale and layout is good I think, and definitely a MonolithSoft job to some extent (though there is something that compelled me more about XCX) but I value more than just layout with an open world map.
It's full of initial intrigue, like the forest where it's always stormy and thundrous. Then you actually go there and it's not really that insightful or interesting, and the puzzle of it is shoved in your face killing its mysterious qualities in order to make some cookie-cutter gamification.
The sense of scale and layout is good I think, and definitely a MonolithSoft job to some extent (though there is something that compelled me more about XCX) but I value more than just layout with an open world map.
Agreed OP. And frankly I don't understand people who say the world is barren tbh. The varied environments, towns, ruins, and landscapes had me constantly wondering and wanting to know what was around the next bend. I recently have started playing Horizon Zero Dawn, and while I'm enjoying it I'm not getting the same since of wonder I got while playing Zelda.
This I agree. For me the Shrines are far better than the caves on Tw3 (that were samey and most of them have a monster inside and little more), but I agree that the game needs a cave system to be even better.
It's interesting in that if someone says "yeah but there's not enough to discover" I can sorta see that angle, if there's one flaw in BotW's world it's that it's perhaps too big in regards to a ton of mountainous landscapes that feel a bit less involved than half of the game's map.
Yet similarly to the forbidden land in shadow of the colossus, those areas of vast emptiness are what help create this sense of place, it's not "empty" in a traditional sense, it's like room to breath (breathe in the breath of the wild as Kass would say), a sort of calculated vastness that accentuates what a world is actually like and in turn makes those more populated areas stand out that much more.
Of course it's not the only open world with a large countryside peppered with a few populated areas, not by a long shot, but then that's where the triangle rule and Disney design doodad already mentioned come into play and create something that runs with this angle, with visually distinct vistas and alluring monuments. Combine that with the freeform climbing and the unparalleled immediate openess/freedom of the map then you have one hell of a stew brewing.
I don't really want to play that ol' comparison game here but really I just can't help but think that when I played Horizon afterwards, that the map felt like a bunch of area chunks slammed together in a manner that had no flow.
While I'm not fond of the gameplay of Bethesda's open world outings, Hyrule manages that similar tug at one's curiosity where you had a plan to head to point A but got sidetracked into a good chunk of detours en route, which isn't bad for a game that isn't going to lead you to some rip roaring sidequest chain (because let's face it, if BotW does one thing in a mediocre open world way, it's sidequests).
I've gotta say though, among some criticisms there's one that strikes me as 100% maximum "wut?" and that's discounting the discovery of shrines, outside of the chance you'll get one of the guardian combat shrines that make up a small number of the overall total, that's the discovery of another unique puzzle chamber or unique overworld riddle presented via bard bird, the very essence of Zelda's core and how the dungeon dynamic of past games truly lives on moreso than any of the divine beasts.
At this point I invoke the Forkball post from earlier and direct you to Dr Evil.
Yet similarly to the forbidden land in shadow of the colossus, those areas of vast emptiness are what help create this sense of place, it's not "empty" in a traditional sense, it's like room to breath (breathe in the breath of the wild as Kass would say), a sort of calculated vastness that accentuates what a world is actually like and in turn makes those more populated areas stand out that much more.
Of course it's not the only open world with a large countryside peppered with a few populated areas, not by a long shot, but then that's where the triangle rule and Disney design doodad already mentioned come into play and create something that runs with this angle, with visually distinct vistas and alluring monuments. Combine that with the freeform climbing and the unparalleled immediate openess/freedom of the map then you have one hell of a stew brewing.
I don't really want to play that ol' comparison game here but really I just can't help but think that when I played Horizon afterwards, that the map felt like a bunch of area chunks slammed together in a manner that had no flow.
While I'm not fond of the gameplay of Bethesda's open world outings, Hyrule manages that similar tug at one's curiosity where you had a plan to head to point A but got sidetracked into a good chunk of detours en route, which isn't bad for a game that isn't going to lead you to some rip roaring sidequest chain (because let's face it, if BotW does one thing in a mediocre open world way, it's sidequests).
I've gotta say though, among some criticisms there's one that strikes me as 100% maximum "wut?" and that's discounting the discovery of shrines, outside of the chance you'll get one of the guardian combat shrines that make up a small number of the overall total, that's the discovery of another unique puzzle chamber or unique overworld riddle presented via bard bird, the very essence of Zelda's core and how the dungeon dynamic of past games truly lives on moreso than any of the divine beasts.
At this point I invoke the Forkball post from earlier and direct you to Dr Evil.
I actually started a Master Mode playthrough again three weeks ago and I have been playing a few hours a week since. It's so hard not to be in love with the game
"Link man, wtf, you very literally had only one job"
yeah same
how can you handwave the vast majority of the delivery mechanisms for puzzle solving in a Zelda game? it's like, wut
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I think its because at some point the puzzles become puzzle solving for the sake of it and not for the reward for completing the puzzle because the reward is always the same. I think reducing the no of shrines and adding some unique items as reward in every shrine would have gone a long way to assuage that feeling.
Yeah I don't get that at all. Sure they all look the same but their puzzles are more interesting than any randomly generated looking caverns with brainless enemies in any Bestheda games.
Hopefully for the next one, they'll change the interior decoration per world region.
I don't really want a "system", that's the thing. I love that Zelda embraces being a game and how much gamification there is but shrines get tedious when they always start and end the same and the aesthetics are 100% the same every time. And furthermore I find shrines feel like what-could've-been ideas for more cohesive, complex and daunting dungeons but because it's all just snippets that are over in 10 or 20 minutes of "ideas" for puzzles it starts to feel like quantity > quality.
I want a map that has unique areas and encourages the player to seek out its secrets. The "seeking out" works so well in BotW but they have to make a version of this formula where going through a forest has the posibility of stumbling across a hole in the ground which leads into a lava lair or finding some creepy NPCs that make you start theorizing what the intent was, and what lore implications it could have for this otherwise cookie cutter world.
A big issue I've had with Fujibayashi-led Zelda, and this is no different than Skyward Sword for me, is that his games do not have subtlety. They have atmosphere, a pretty comfortable atmosphere but still, but they don't have subtlety. A mysterious NPC is practically advertising how mysterious they are and the game will draw cinematic focus to how mysterious something is which makes it unmysterious. I feel that way about the assassins you meet in BotW multiple times. It never really felt like a mystery to me but it was treated as such, and once you go to where they live, if there ever was a mystery it's just dispelled and it's really nothing special. The whole game was like that for me.
Zelda games are always puzzle solving for the sake of it, that's a huge aspect of why it's a beloved franchise. hell, for Zelda games when you get a new item (or the runes, in this case) being able to solve new puzzles is the reward
Well the game must do something right if even devs like Ken Levine praise it to heavens.
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Yeah but when you are asked to do that 90 times with the same aesthetic for each shrine and the same reward for each shrine it starts to become tedious. At least thats where I think most people are coming from when they discount shrines.
I guess it's all perspective because for me the reward for finding a shrine was solving the puzzle(s) that followed
I can agree about the aesthetic though that seems a bit more superficial
This is true. Let's see how the Zelda team fixes this in the next game, they need to create bigger dungeons that at the same time have some reason to be separated from the physics/systems of the open world that make every puzzle irrelevant.
Destroyed? No. But I would argue you are wrong. RDR2 is beautiful, but it's open world is very limited and the game itself is way more linear. Zelda's design basically allows you do anything you want. Climb a mountain? Yep, go climb a mountain.
Their puzzles for the vast majority are so basic, that they are just boring busy work.
I hope they find another way to fill the world with more meaningful content in the next game.
Well, I think the Shrine itself and the puzzles within it are the reward, not the Spirit Orb.
That said, I do agree about visual variety, and I hope they fix that in the next one.
the only competition in my mind is Xenoblade X and its telling that MonolithSoft worked on both games. their environment designers are best-in-class at creating large environments that will stick with you after you've put the controller down.
I think this is when a players mindset comes into play, in that in my mind it's about the journey (the puzzle) not the destination (a spirit orb), for others it seems to be driven by the idea of loot or filling an EXP bar in another game and the puzzle was just the roadblock to another electric greatsword of limited use.
Buuuut then I just fall back onto that this is Zelda by the book, so basically what phanphare said.
Though in a twist you could say acquiring spirit orbs to beef up health and stamina in small increments effectively delivers an incredibly basic levelling system.
Yeah, I think that emptiness is important. I don't want a ton of scripted events and distractions littered everywhere.
Like here the area is pretty empty in terms of things to do and events but the whole location conveys a sense of open nature. The scene is allowed to breath and feel like a natural landscape instead of a bunch of video game levels pasted together like you said. It's the same here:
It's wide open and there isn't any events to draw my attention (except for the shrine off screen to the left and the enemy base behind me). The area is "empty" but if it was more condensed, filled up with more things to "do", it would feel restricted and closed in. I remember taking this screenshot because I could feel this sense of space and atmosphere coming from this vast canyon that wouldn't work unless it was wide open like it is. It wouldn't feel like a real place in nature. And it's not like there isn't anything to do here. Ahead there's a path through the canyon with enemies to fight and a quest. To my right is some interesting rock formations I can climb freely and discover what's beyond them. To the left is a huge cliff wall with curious scaffoldings that I can attempt to climb. I see them stretching far into the distance where a much taller mountain looms in the background obscured by clouds. There isn't really a clear single path, it's open and I every path feels like an adventure to go on. I remember I spent a long time getting through this area because I couldn't just pick one path.
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It does not have to be an EXP bar but yeah an actual decent weapon ( that does not break ) or gear or item or even a neat story beat or a combination of these can be used as an effective reward. The journey and the destination can ( and should imo ) both be rewards in a well designed exploration game but in Zelda only one of it is true unfortunately.