When it comes to the hottest game works of the moment, it is "Eldon's Ring of Law". Hidetaka Miyazaki sublimated the soul worldview and gameplay with an open map, and at the same time, unlike the open world that began to be popular many years ago, there are no common large number of UI guidance prompts and task lists in the old man ring. As the protagonist of the color-caster, by opening the blessing teleportation points around the world, communicating with NPCs with dialogue options, analyzing and deliberating on their own and piecing together the next target or destination, such a non-guided design really makes players who are accustomed to guidance less accustomed.
So, is it better to use friendly guidance design in the open world, or is it better to use implicit guidance? This time we will talk about this problem.
Formulaic and workmanship
There are two kinds of open worlds that are often discussed, one is the Ubisoft design, dense icons often make people confused, and the difference in what to do and experience on each map is usually not large, coupled with a large number of to-do lists and UI hints, if you have played too many similar designs or are tired of this design, a sense of compulsion and work will arise spontaneously. The second is the design of the old man ring or the breath of the wilderness, which does not actively guide the player, which gives you a direction goal at most, and the rest needs to rely on you to start exploring and excavating independently.
The old man ring's sense of exploration and autonomy are addictive, and the things to do are run map/battle/get rewards/interact with NPCs to unshoot, and the core concept is to build and distribute the soul system of high-difficulty battles and RPG elements with open maps, so as to liberate from the constraints of the past linear route. In the past, the Dark Souls could only fight three times until Guda had fought repeatedly, and now you can't do the big tree guard, in addition to trying to challenge, you can also go around other places for a day, and wait until you have a little harvest and then come back to fight.
Since the core gameplay has a major part and continues to loop until the end of the game, it is clear that one of the key points of the sense of work is whether the player can devote themselves to the core gameplay and enjoy it. In the case of the Assassin Mythology trilogy, it is stealth investigation collection and matching battles, as well as historical reproduction and beautiful ancient world maps, if there is no preconceived mentality to repel, the immersion of walking in ancient cities is indeed quite strong, coupled with the main branch line with moderate rewards and reinforcement needs, even sweeping errands will give players the motivation to play.
For example, in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, because the Odyssey's outfit and skill selection are diverse, coupled with a good combat feel, people will not be too reluctant to repeat the inventory. At the same time, Odyssey also has the design of the battle scale of each block country, killing the commander and soldiers in the district stronghold or even directly killing the leader of the region will make the scale increase or decrease and trigger the national war, and can also recruit the enemy as a crew member of the stronghold, or the wanted mercenaries will increase the variables. This piece can be said to be the advantage of Ubisoft, it can also be said to be a point of controversy, the advantage is that the elements are diverse, the prompts are clear and there will be connections with each other, the disadvantage is that the same method is played more, and there is no significant change in the middle and late game experience, there is no doubt that there will be a sense of boredom brought about by repetition. In this regard, soul games can greatly reduce repetition and irritability due to their colorful and magnificent BOSS experience, RPG-based gameplay and genre construction, while the boss combat experience of Ubisoft games is generally bland, so the gap comes out.
Ubisoft since the success of "Assassin's Creed 2" that year, for many years has been fixed to place a large number of element icons and question marks on the map, because there are not many such works, it is indeed very fresh when it first starts to play, but after many years, it will feel forced to guide people and make people feel irritable, and there is little difference in the experience of playing to the back, so the sense of work caused by repetition will arise spontaneously. Coupled with this set of formulas used in almost all of Ubisoft's games, from Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Watch Dogs, to Ghost Recon, the stereotype of nature is difficult to wash away.
But is the sense of work evil and unpopular? It is important to note that as the core of the main gameplay throughout the game must be interesting and varied, if you want to rely solely on a large number of icon elements, side line rewards, scene parkour to support, there will be cases like "Ghost Line: Tokyo". And like the Odyssey can have a good evaluation, in addition to the use of more RPG dialogue options than the previous works, the fun and change of the battle is also extremely important, not only can play the genre but also the three major talent directions and combat skills for players to choose, so that players have the motivation to upgrade and collect equipment, so that it can reduce the sense of work brought about by repeatedly sweeping the stronghold to kill mercenaries or unstrip branches. Simply put, the core gameplay must be interesting enough to complement each other to support all the interactive elements of the map.
Exciting stories and unique adventures
Most of the open-world games on the market are based on experiencing the rich stories of others, and usually have clear and tireless guidance, in addition to the main line of the general direction of the main quest, but also with side quests and collection, players as long as they follow the progress of the main line while paying attention to the cutscenes or dialogue can get a lot of information. Perhaps you will make some choices to change the subsequent plot in the process, but most of them are based on experiencing a wonderful story set up and the personality of the protagonist with a distinct personality, such as Kratos, the god of war, and Eloy on the horizon.
In addition to the low-key protagonist, the general direction and story are usually hidden in the description of various items and props, the character's words and scenes, the player needs to piece together their own imagination, even if the wolf and the old man are indeed slightly clearer before the chain, but it is only the plot of the general direction, such as repairing the ring or pursuing the undead, in fact, what has happened, or the player needs to study the patchwork and deliberation, plus the process of hidden exploration, independent creation of characters and difficult battles with the BOSS, It gives people the feeling that "this is my own independent adventure".
The obscure inactivity of the guide with the semi-open/open map, coupled with the difficulty of the special combat/RPG character construction, is a complementary and sublimated design, so that the player is full of freshness and desire to explore. The Ubisoft style of the work of the prompt guide will directly showdown with the player, in order to quickly enter the situation with the game with cutscenes, NPC guidance, a large number of UI prompts and instructions and other information bombarded by the player's brain, will make people feel that the game is controlled step by step to guide. After teaching the route planned by the designer for a while, the open map and dominance are returned to the player, but in the end, compared to the player's free movement, you will find that it may be easier to play according to the guidance and planning of the system. Increasing the sense of work and wasting exquisite maps, but also somewhat losing the meaning of open maps, which will make people feel that they are only formally open, but in fact, they are still firmly limited by the main line and progress.
The combination of Ubisoft's open world and RPG design has led to a very subtle phenomenon: on the surface, it is open for casual players to explore and hang out, but due to the punishment and restriction of the level difference, players have to improve the attributes of the character in a specific area or even complete the main line step by step to enter the next main line or area. The advantage of RPG is the diversification of characters brought about by the numerical level of attributes and outfits, but in turn, the restrictions of RPG elements on combat and advancement are also quite obvious, such as Ubisoft's later often based on the character's level as the most important basis.
Because of the rhythm and design of the battle system, players can rely on a lot of attempts to familiarize themselves with the boss and then come back to challenge, and in terms of level and attributes, if you are willing to spend time to liver Lune, it can naturally provide a higher fault tolerance and advantage. Like the origin of the level difference of more than three levels, basically can not fight the enemy, is a pure waste of time, disguised to limit the freedom of exploration and the choice of taking tasks. Of course, you can also try to leapfrog the challenge, but usually only feel powerless and unreasonable, because the origin does not allow the player to freely match points, most of them have to use special methods to fight for a long time, and even rely on luck to grind each other.
Guided or obscure? Do you have to choose one of the two?
At present, the two ways of guiding and obscurity on the market are relatively large, the obscure gameplay is more well-known such as the Breath of the Wilderness and the Old Man Ring, and a large number of guided games such as Ubisoft or the new god of war, Tsushima Island is more or less on the top. If you don't have a strong personal preference or are tired of a lot of guidance, both designs actually have fun, and the sense of work depends largely on the stereotype of the player, whether the core gameplay provided by the game is interesting enough, whether it can support long periods of exploration and repetitive play, and other factors are the focus. Although Ubisoft has been formulaic for more than a decade, it still has its own fun to a certain extent, and if you want to choose a side, I am afraid that even works such as "The Witcher 3" or the new God of War and Tsushima Island will be labeled as the so-called "homework filling open world" because of personal subjective likes and dislikes.
The standard of the UI interface
UI is also very subjective, basically divided into "friendly guidance" and "obscure prompts" two, friendly guidance UI will not only tirelessly prompt you the current task / goal, tell you where the NPC and destination are and what rewards, there are a variety of icons and question marks on the map, for only want to experience the plot or novice players are indeed very friendly, but for players who are more pursuit of play integrity, the question mark is really uncomfortable. The UI of the obscure prompt is very simple, take the old man ring, the map at a glance in addition to the teleportation point is left with a variety of native landmarks, relatively speaking, there is no sense of irritability. For some players, although they can deduce the mission objectives through some obscure hints in the game, there is no clear mission guidance, and even the task list is not, which is too much to discourage. So neither is a perfect existence that everyone can accept, and there is no standard answer to the design of the UI interface.
conclusion
There are many factors between friendly guidance and obscure guidance that will determine the final game experience, such as core gameplay, map design, side design, and combat system are all very important links, and simply discussing good or bad, the result is always one-sided. Although the success of the old man ring proves the excellence of non-guided design, on the other hand, the mainstream guided design also has its context and reason, whether it is all labeled with a sense of work and linearity, in the end, it depends on the individual mentality and taste to decide.