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EXPLORATION AS A CHALLENGE
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LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
LockeZ
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CloseI can't think of two games that approach exploration more differently than Skyrim and Final Fantasy 13, but the exploration in these two games shares a common problem. That problem is that it isn't a challenge.
FF13, like most JRPGs, challenges the player as they explore, stopping them every few two screens or so to fight a battle before continuing, but the exploration itself is given to them as a freebie. The only way to do it is the way it's intended to be done. Skyrim, like most open world games, gives the player a lot of options in how they explore, but all of those options are the right ones, and there are no obstacles in your way to overcome. There's nothing that stops you from going anywhere you want, immediately, except for the amount of time you have to spend walking.
Then you have games like The Witcher 3 that have both problems. There are lots of options, but no matter what you're trying to find, you have it marked on your map, and you even have a dotted line to follow to get there. You super duper cannot fail.
Although these games all have reasons for doing what they do, what I'm interested in is the idea of exploration as a challenge. One that has a success and failure state. Or, perhaps, varying degrees of success and failure based on how well the player explores. And I'm hoping for something more interesting than "you walked left instead of right at this fork, so you missed a treasure chest." Something that gets the player to actually investigate the world and pay attention to it, instead of just passing through it, and rewards them for doing so.
I'm also hoping, desperately, to prevent the failure state from feeling like "I can't find the next part of the game. I want to play it, but I can't find it." That's often what Castlevania games feel like when you're failing at the exploration. I want there to be a compromise that doesn't end up like that. That's the problem that waypoints on minimaps were invented to prevent; I'm just looking for a different way.
The examples that pop into my head immediately are all outdoor secrets in Zelda games. But not every game can have fifteen different tools to interact with the environment in all sorts of different ways. Most of us are limited to one "interact" button and maybe also an "attack" button. Somehow that feels a lot less like it's rewarding the player for noticing something, and more like it's just rewarding them for pressing A in front of every object.
FF13, like most JRPGs, challenges the player as they explore, stopping them every few two screens or so to fight a battle before continuing, but the exploration itself is given to them as a freebie. The only way to do it is the way it's intended to be done. Skyrim, like most open world games, gives the player a lot of options in how they explore, but all of those options are the right ones, and there are no obstacles in your way to overcome. There's nothing that stops you from going anywhere you want, immediately, except for the amount of time you have to spend walking.
Then you have games like The Witcher 3 that have both problems. There are lots of options, but no matter what you're trying to find, you have it marked on your map, and you even have a dotted line to follow to get there. You super duper cannot fail.
Although these games all have reasons for doing what they do, what I'm interested in is the idea of exploration as a challenge. One that has a success and failure state. Or, perhaps, varying degrees of success and failure based on how well the player explores. And I'm hoping for something more interesting than "you walked left instead of right at this fork, so you missed a treasure chest." Something that gets the player to actually investigate the world and pay attention to it, instead of just passing through it, and rewards them for doing so.
I'm also hoping, desperately, to prevent the failure state from feeling like "I can't find the next part of the game. I want to play it, but I can't find it." That's often what Castlevania games feel like when you're failing at the exploration. I want there to be a compromise that doesn't end up like that. That's the problem that waypoints on minimaps were invented to prevent; I'm just looking for a different way.
The examples that pop into my head immediately are all outdoor secrets in Zelda games. But not every game can have fifteen different tools to interact with the environment in all sorts of different ways. Most of us are limited to one "interact" button and maybe also an "attack" button. Somehow that feels a lot less like it's rewarding the player for noticing something, and more like it's just rewarding them for pressing A in front of every object.
grindalf
3556
Due to the nature of my game(procedurally generated rpg based on exploration) this topic is of great interest to me.
I don't/wont/cant use map markers to show points of interest but I do have a road system that goes to cities, portals ect so if you find a road you know its going somewhere good. everything else is still in the design phase
I don't/wont/cant use map markers to show points of interest but I do have a road system that goes to cities, portals ect so if you find a road you know its going somewhere good. everything else is still in the design phase
EDPVincent
12
Terraria does exploration both challenguing and rewarding by making the enviroment be way more dangerous than monsters. For example, the deeper you dig, the more empty spaces there are, making it very easy to fall for your death. Water also becomes dangerous because your swimming capacity is very limited and you drown very quickly too. And lighting is always an issue, becuse there is none underground and too many things that can kill you quickly. Then there are other biomes which bring different stuff to the table, such as cobwebs that slow you down or vines that block your projectiles. However, the more dangerous the zone is, the more interesting and powerful loot you find.
It makes a very curious progression system, because your advancement is much more tied to your mobility rather than your fighting ability. At the beginning you are limited to jumping, but later you can find a grappling hook, which makes vertical navigation easier and can even save you from falling to your death if you have good reflexes. You can later upgrade that to throw three hooks instead of one, helping you maneuver in dangerous places by using them carefully. You can also find boots that multiply your speed in even ground, an item to breathe underwater, or boots that slow down your fall. Even the bosses are made with movement in mind, making it crucial to be able to maneuver and dodge their attacks.
It makes a very curious progression system, because your advancement is much more tied to your mobility rather than your fighting ability. At the beginning you are limited to jumping, but later you can find a grappling hook, which makes vertical navigation easier and can even save you from falling to your death if you have good reflexes. You can later upgrade that to throw three hooks instead of one, helping you maneuver in dangerous places by using them carefully. You can also find boots that multiply your speed in even ground, an item to breathe underwater, or boots that slow down your fall. Even the bosses are made with movement in mind, making it crucial to be able to maneuver and dodge their attacks.
Well it largely depends on the genre I suppose.
My best take would be taking and explaining the gothic games.
Basically, monster do not respawn (other than at some crucial story progression points, aka, they respawn a few times throughout the entire game based on chapters), and all or most areas are readily accessible, but you are hindered by enemy strength.
They are also varied (so like weak monsters along the river, even if there is a strong monster ahead in that cave), while there are only a certain number of enemy types.
This makes for many things : one main thing is that experience is extremely valuable, (and so is money as resource since you cannot farm things beyond what's there, once), so learning and focusing on certain skills is really important.
For example, you can learn to get hides n claws from enemies to sell - the earlier you get this the better, but you will lose points you could spend on combat-orientated skills, or you can invest in alchemy so later on you can "upgrade" the few stat increasing herbs that you can find by making them into potions.
The other big thing is that this makes you actively seek out and explore things - both to get money to learn and make do in town, but also to get as much experience out of your current strength as possible before you are able to hunt stronger monsters. In which case you go seek those out.
You could go sneak around to collect herbs, but if you still got caught by that big guy, you are dead meat. (and if it's simply too strong an area for you, there's not too much you can do)
You need to look out and learn how strong enemies are and how many at once you can take on, or find ways to separate them and hunt them one by one.
I remember there being an orc castle and I could stand above and kill enemies with arrows without them getting to me - so I lured one after another slowly in to do just that, because otherwise I couldn't have killed them at the time.
AND additionally to doing the feat of "haha, tricked you game", I could then see them respawn later and feel satisfied knowing I got extra stuff out of it.
Since you do traverse things again, a not-too-big game familiarity made it really fun, and variation in areas is really important to know how to orientate yourself too (no, don't give me that "Oh but you have a minimap have an arrow pointing towards-.." that ain't nowhere near as fun)
And yes, it is pretty free-fire in where to do stuff and while you have main quests because the locations are so familiar there really was no need for you to have any such super-duper handheld function.
It made the places much more important, memorable and fun imho.
Personally, what I like most in this is that strong monsters aren't contained to just "that one area" and anything before that is "exactly that strength level", so it feels both more natural and more interesting. Even if you can avoid them to some extent, venturing into more dangerous zones gives you extra spoils earlier as well as double the spoils later as any respawn means extra exp / hides n shit.
Turn-based combat oughta be more difficult to implement here, but if there were ways to set up escape, this could very well be a thing.
I think Etrian Odyssey does a good middle way where big monster move on the map whereas "weak" are there as random encounters. This means you can watch them and follow their patterns, sometimes they even follow specific rules (like only moving at night or day) that may block your passage if you come at the wrong time.
Of course, it also follows corridors and is a dungeon crawler, but so many jrpgs have just corridors too, blegh^^ so would still work.
Why would there not be a big monster roaming in the area sometime? Even if yer not here for it.
My best take would be taking and explaining the gothic games.
Basically, monster do not respawn (other than at some crucial story progression points, aka, they respawn a few times throughout the entire game based on chapters), and all or most areas are readily accessible, but you are hindered by enemy strength.
They are also varied (so like weak monsters along the river, even if there is a strong monster ahead in that cave), while there are only a certain number of enemy types.
This makes for many things : one main thing is that experience is extremely valuable, (and so is money as resource since you cannot farm things beyond what's there, once), so learning and focusing on certain skills is really important.
For example, you can learn to get hides n claws from enemies to sell - the earlier you get this the better, but you will lose points you could spend on combat-orientated skills, or you can invest in alchemy so later on you can "upgrade" the few stat increasing herbs that you can find by making them into potions.
The other big thing is that this makes you actively seek out and explore things - both to get money to learn and make do in town, but also to get as much experience out of your current strength as possible before you are able to hunt stronger monsters. In which case you go seek those out.
You could go sneak around to collect herbs, but if you still got caught by that big guy, you are dead meat. (and if it's simply too strong an area for you, there's not too much you can do)
You need to look out and learn how strong enemies are and how many at once you can take on, or find ways to separate them and hunt them one by one.
I remember there being an orc castle and I could stand above and kill enemies with arrows without them getting to me - so I lured one after another slowly in to do just that, because otherwise I couldn't have killed them at the time.
AND additionally to doing the feat of "haha, tricked you game", I could then see them respawn later and feel satisfied knowing I got extra stuff out of it.
Since you do traverse things again, a not-too-big game familiarity made it really fun, and variation in areas is really important to know how to orientate yourself too (no, don't give me that "Oh but you have a minimap have an arrow pointing towards-.." that ain't nowhere near as fun)
And yes, it is pretty free-fire in where to do stuff and while you have main quests because the locations are so familiar there really was no need for you to have any such super-duper handheld function.
It made the places much more important, memorable and fun imho.
Personally, what I like most in this is that strong monsters aren't contained to just "that one area" and anything before that is "exactly that strength level", so it feels both more natural and more interesting. Even if you can avoid them to some extent, venturing into more dangerous zones gives you extra spoils earlier as well as double the spoils later as any respawn means extra exp / hides n shit.
Turn-based combat oughta be more difficult to implement here, but if there were ways to set up escape, this could very well be a thing.
I think Etrian Odyssey does a good middle way where big monster move on the map whereas "weak" are there as random encounters. This means you can watch them and follow their patterns, sometimes they even follow specific rules (like only moving at night or day) that may block your passage if you come at the wrong time.
Of course, it also follows corridors and is a dungeon crawler, but so many jrpgs have just corridors too, blegh^^ so would still work.
Why would there not be a big monster roaming in the area sometime? Even if yer not here for it.
RyaReisender
200
Oh man, I've written so many articles about this that I just don't know where to start.
So instead, I'll link you to a post I made about this in my development blog: http://www.talking-time.net/showpost.php?p=2256146&postcount=15
I really wish somebody, anybody, would manage to make complex dungeon design again. Dungeon design where finding the correct path is a challenge. I'd so instant buy that game, assuming it has the three must-haves:
1. The dungeon makes physically sense.
2. You can instantly escape the dungeon, keeping your exp and gold.
3. Wide dungeon design instead of deep dungeon design.
(Of course having multiple layers is also important, but I guess that's included in "finding the correct path is a challenge".)
So instead, I'll link you to a post I made about this in my development blog: http://www.talking-time.net/showpost.php?p=2256146&postcount=15
I really wish somebody, anybody, would manage to make complex dungeon design again. Dungeon design where finding the correct path is a challenge. I'd so instant buy that game, assuming it has the three must-haves:
1. The dungeon makes physically sense.
2. You can instantly escape the dungeon, keeping your exp and gold.
3. Wide dungeon design instead of deep dungeon design.
(Of course having multiple layers is also important, but I guess that's included in "finding the correct path is a challenge".)
hedge1
862
Just throwing this thought out here:
What if you looked at exploration more in terms of learning rather than exploring? So talking to NPCs or other adventurers would give you critical information about how the world works that you could then use to find things.
An NPC might say "cave spiders collect shiny objects in their webs high on the walls to keep them safe from travelers." So now in the dungeon you'll look for webs high up on walls and know there's treasure there.
Another NPC might speak of a great blacksmith in some sort of mountain pass. If you listen to the clues you'll be able to pick out the pass on the world map and get some better equipment.
It's a reward from talking with NPCs that incorporates finding new places in the environment. At the same time, those places are still available just by luck or diligence.
What if you looked at exploration more in terms of learning rather than exploring? So talking to NPCs or other adventurers would give you critical information about how the world works that you could then use to find things.
An NPC might say "cave spiders collect shiny objects in their webs high on the walls to keep them safe from travelers." So now in the dungeon you'll look for webs high up on walls and know there's treasure there.
Another NPC might speak of a great blacksmith in some sort of mountain pass. If you listen to the clues you'll be able to pick out the pass on the world map and get some better equipment.
It's a reward from talking with NPCs that incorporates finding new places in the environment. At the same time, those places are still available just by luck or diligence.
Kaempfer
1932
Breath of the Wild does a surprisingly good job of this. The quest markers only point you to the start or eventual turn-in for the quest, not any of the mid-points. If someone mentions a WHITE HORSE near HYRULE FIELD you can probably figure out what to do yourself. It's not usually very difficult to figure out what they want, but you do have to figure it out, pretty much every time. Link has a few tools at his disposal, but most of the figuring out relies on critical thinking rather than tool use (although, of course, it plays into it).
If you want to avoid the fail state ruining the game experience, you need to hint to the player that they're on the right track. If you say "it's somewhere!!!" then the player will never bother searching every nook and cranny, because there are five billion nooks and seventy six million crannies. If you say "it's somewhere in x town" the player will give that town a thorough search, maybe uncovering other secrets while they do. If they ever feel lost, they KNOW they're in the right place, because it's somewhere in the town. It's the feeling of "it's got to be here somewhere" vs. "it could be anywhere!". There's still a very real fail state, because the player can always overlook that thing and give up, but if they are really stumped they know they just need to check it again.
And, in the short term, the hearty "ka-chunk" of the right switch opening something is always nice. Nothing worse than setting ten switches and being unsure if you're one off or ten away from getting it right. Sometimes a bit of positive reinforcement is nice.
If you want to avoid the fail state ruining the game experience, you need to hint to the player that they're on the right track. If you say "it's somewhere!!!" then the player will never bother searching every nook and cranny, because there are five billion nooks and seventy six million crannies. If you say "it's somewhere in x town" the player will give that town a thorough search, maybe uncovering other secrets while they do. If they ever feel lost, they KNOW they're in the right place, because it's somewhere in the town. It's the feeling of "it's got to be here somewhere" vs. "it could be anywhere!". There's still a very real fail state, because the player can always overlook that thing and give up, but if they are really stumped they know they just need to check it again.
And, in the short term, the hearty "ka-chunk" of the right switch opening something is always nice. Nothing worse than setting ten switches and being unsure if you're one off or ten away from getting it right. Sometimes a bit of positive reinforcement is nice.
Darken
3952
The most direct example I think of as exploration as a skill is that one dungeon in LTTP where you intentionally drop down through a hole because you know it's positioned above a spot you can't otherwise go to. It's probably a little more obviously designed than I remember but I feel like that sort of thing is taking advantage of the player's knowledge of the structure in a core way that doesn't involve other mechanics.
Can't really think of anything else.
Can't really think of anything else.
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