Someday I’m interested in making an open world game (short on features because I’ll never have giant budgets) that embraces the friction of inconvenience, but finds enjoyable ways for people to circumvent them.

Eg: You can’t easily locate yourself on the map, but you can use a radio to ping towers and triangulate, which gives a breezy interface - or just ask locals. You can’t fast travel, but train stations get you where you’re going - and you might get an interesting conversation or even a whole questline on board.

[–] Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

There's a little open world game called Miasmata with that triangulation system! It's an open world survival horror. It's pretty short though, and I bet you could get it for just a few bucks on sale. I really enjoyed my time in it, and the world is the perfect mix of dreary and serene.

[–] Happenchance@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When ARMA Reforger released it was chaos, with 95% of the people hopelessly lost at all times. It's because the game gave you a map, a compass, and nothing else for navigation. Best. Immersion. Ever.

Always on instant GPS with augmented reality waypoints between abstract objectives is what kills player immersion (and developer creativity). If I can just follow an arrow from point to point and complete a game: it wasn't worth making the game.

[–] Dubious_Fart@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yep. Theres no exploring, theres just "run to waypoint. grab thing waypoint is on, run to waypoint, hand over waypointed item, find next waypoint source, repeat"

Cause devs want to dumb games down so any mouth breathing reject can conquer it without any effort, to bring in that sweet sweet idiot money.

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not every game mechanic needs to be a struggle.

And not every person can dedicate hours of time each week to play. Doesn't make them mouth breathers.

But I agree they should at least give you the option to turn it off or on.

At least it is a Bethesda game, so someone will mod it in.

[–] Dubious_Fart@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Its not a struggle to read the quest text and find a location on your own volition.

If thats a struggle, then you should be playing games that don't require reading.

[–] hellerpop@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I think Zelda does this pretty good already.