Anyone else have Open World Fatigue?

[akouns]

Interesting that there are people who don't like open worlds. I've gotten to the point where I don't like a game unless it has an open world.

That said, there are some games which have absolutely failed at open worlds. As a result I can never play another title from the particular developers so long as I live.
Just Cause and Saints Row are to name a few.

Witcher 3 did a great job and is the reason I'm even on this forum.

GTA San Andreas did the best open world of all time for me. But thats my opinion.

 

[Kaebus2196]

Interesting that there are people who don't like open worlds. I've gotten to the point where I don't like a game unless it has an open world.

That said, there are some games which have absolutely failed at open worlds. As a result I can never play another title from the particular developers so long as I live.
Just Cause and Saints Row are to name a few.

Witcher 3 did a great job and is the reason I'm even on this forum.

GTA San Andreas did the best open world of all time for me. But thats my opinion.

I agree that GTA has done well taking advantage of their open worlds. To say they are the best I am not sure in my own taste, but they are certainly high up there. I still have to give it to the RPGs that make their open worlds immersive and dynamic. Things like Mercenaries and Just Cause, in fact any game that just has a big open world map, but doesn't have any depth to the locations (ex. the only buildings you can enter are the ones without doors, or small trees block your tank from being able to move forward) are what I consider to fail the open world experience.

Other than that, yes I usually find myself only playing games if they are open world. That is with the exceptions of games where you don't control a character that moves around throughout a map.

 

[blank_redge]

I just put Fallout 4 on the back burner after 100+ hours.
I'm tired of kill-loot-kill-loot-kill-loot ...

I dunno; I kind of like Bethesda's "hiking simulator" model. =p I like the random encounters you run into, wandering through the wasteland. I'd like to see a more robust version of that in an urban environment.

I don't think Open World is a problem, I think some mission design is. But then again, people lost their shit for SRIV because it's "an open world game which is not boring and oh-the-missions-are-so-crazy-and-original"... no. SRTT and SRIV are bad examples of open world games: a bland, somewhat big open world in which nothing happens in favor of one-off corridor sections in which they can hold your hand so that you see all the fun stuff in the right order, or QTE missions... and in IV an open world that you play in auto-pilot, kinda like a zombie, that's the kind of compelling that game is.

GTA (couldn't pick exactly which one, but I suppose in terms of world it would be SA and V which I haven't played) and SR2 to me is where it's at... To me the real treat of open world is rewarding player interest and exploration, not only with unlockables, but with personal satisfaction from discovering something like an easter egg or a piece of worldbuilding. Also, making it feel alive and lending itself to that kind of gameplay that blends preparation and improvisation.

Well said. SR:TT felt pretty soulless and hollow, outside of the railroad script. SR2 felt like a living city, as does Los Santos in GTA 5.

 

[Suhiira]

I dunno; I kind of like Bethesda's "hiking simulator" model. =p I like the random encounters you run into, wandering through the wasteland. I'd like to see a more robust version of that in an urban environment.

Actually I wouldn't mind if I wasn't getting attacked every 50m.
What the hell do all these raiders, supermutants, and etc. eat and prey on normally ???

 

[Kaebus2196]

Actually I wouldn't mind if I wasn't getting attacked every 50m.
What the hell do all these raiders, supermutants, and etc. eat and prey on normally ???

I could see that in certain areas of Night City. Especially when you start dawning more expensive (but not more threatening) equipment later on. Someone's going to take notice and think you're worth robbing once you're walking around with silver glam all over the place as opposed to just running around in rags.

 

[Sardukhar]

Actually I wouldn't mind if I wasn't getting attacked every 50m.
What the hell do all these raiders, supermutants, and etc. eat and prey on normally ???

RIGHT?

That was my issue with W3, too. The predator-prey relationship was HILARIOUS to me, coming from the wilds of Canada. So many predators.

Fallout 4, Super Mutants still need to be Dipped, too. So..yeah? Howcome so many?

I really liked how the Raiders were portrayed though. Did you ever do the mission where you get to read up on how they went from ex-Minutemen, to mercs, to raiders?

Kind of sad, actually.

 

[Suhiira]

I really liked how the Raiders were portrayed though. Did you ever do the mission where you get to read up on how they went from ex-Minutemen, to mercs, to raiders?

Kind of sad, actually.

I've run into a couple raider gangs that were ex-Minutemen, can't say as I felt to sorry for them. Might be my military/police background but anyone that swaps from protecting the public to preying on it gets zero sympathy from me.

 

[frivolousam]

Im tired of playing open world games with a character that has no personality. The reasoning of it is ofc that you are playing yourself which is why most of these characters are bland i would much prefer to play a character that had a preset personality cause then the dialogues would be far more engaging and real.

So you want something like Witcher 3?

Witcher 3 which i stopped playing after 3-4h (cause i didnt care about the character or the world)

sdfghjkl


The fatiguing in open world games are almost always comes from the random stuff for me aside from the collectibles and such. Witcher 3 promised the open world eco-system but I hardly noticed any of it; I cleared a location of bandits? Guess what, they respawned the next day. Instead of making few number of known traders who'd roam the map and we can encounter with them only if we're lucky they made random-spawn-trader clones on the certain roads. Instead of designing a system, devs usually choose the easy way> spawn this and that at these locations after these certain number of minutes if the player is thereabouts. The mother of immersion breakers.

Instead of taking notes from New Vegas where most everything you encounter has a reason and backstory or even fully fledged quests to be there and wouldn't respawn after you'd just left, every other open world RPG dev follows Ubisoft's "action game" spawn system; the more and frequent action for the player, the better right?

 

[Suhiira]

Instead of taking notes from New Vegas where most everything you encounter has a reason and backstory or even fully fledged quests to be there and wouldn't respawn after you'd just left, every other open world RPG dev follows Ubisoft's "action game" spawn system; the more and frequent action for the player, the better right?

Yeah, catering "too much" to the action game crowd has hurt RPGs tremendously.
Shallow thrill-a-minute gameplay for all!

 

[web-head91]

So you want something like Witcher 3?



sdfghjkl


The fatiguing in open world games are almost always comes from the random stuff for me aside from the collectibles and such. Witcher 3 promised the open world eco-system but I hardly noticed any of it; I cleared a location of bandits? Guess what, they respawned the next day. Instead of making few number of known traders who'd roam the map and we can encounter with them only if we're lucky they made random-spawn-trader clones on the certain roads. Instead of designing a system, devs usually choose the easy way> spawn this and that at these locations after these certain number of minutes if the player is thereabouts. The mother of immersion breakers.

Instead of taking notes from New Vegas where most everything you encounter has a reason and backstory or even fully fledged quests to be there and wouldn't respawn after you'd just left, every other open world RPG dev follows Ubisoft's "action game" spawn system; the more and frequent action for the player, the better right?

i love you sir/madam, i just LOVE you.
you got everything i wanted to say right !

 

[Sardukhar]

Yeah, catering "too much" to the action game crowd has hurt RPGs tremendously.
Shallow thrill-a-minute gameplay for all!

Not to turn this thread into a FO4-or-modern-RPG-bitchfest, but, yes, I think this is true. Very true.

ALSO NOT that I want turn based or RTwP back, because more boring.

But I -really- want Fallout 2, ( which one of my kids is playing now, so great), world and quest design back! I do! WITH FO4 gameplay and world design, which I really like!

And why can't we have those? Do they not like paying good writers? Some of the writing in FO4 is very good - gang conversations, Kellogg stuff, ( actually sad!) Institute stuff, all sorts of good, solid writing that you appreciate if you put down that heavy prejudice you're carrying.

But the quest and story depth is just so much less and that is too bad.

 

[Suhiira]

I'd be more then overjoyed to see CP2077 be Fallout 2 with Fallout 4 style graphics and combat system (or maybe slightly better).
Humm ... time to start a petition thread?

Afraid I couldn't emphasize much with Kellog, lots of people get their lives turned inside out, that's no reason to become a sociopath.

 

[frivolousam]

I found Kellog's backstory unnecessary, he was just a pawn after all. Could have used that depth somewhere else.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Previously the most prevalent go-to game was GTA 5, then Witcher 3 (obviously), and now it seems to be Fallout 4. How about CDPR forgetting all of those (especially Fallout 4) and concentrating on something else entirely for CP, thinking outside of the box and not just what currently popular to copy? It's madness, I know, but nonetheless...

 

[Suhiira]

Previously the most prevalent go-to game was GTA 5, then Witcher 3 (obviously), and now it seems to be Fallout 4. How about CDPR forgetting all of those (especially Fallout 4) and concentrating on something else entirely for CP, thinking outside of the box and not just what currently popular to copy? It's madness, I know, but nonetheless...

Thinking outside the box is all well and fine but no need to re-intent the wheel.
Certain aspects of some past games worked well, no need to copy them verbatim but use the concept.
Originality for the sake of originality usually ends very badly.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Thinking outside the box is all well and fine but no need to re-intent the wheel.

As a general rule, yes. But sometimes it pays to do some rethinking, you know, is it really that proverbial wheel that is needed (or wanted) in the first place.

Originality for the sake of originality usually ends very badly.

That's why we have so few nice things in the mainstream these days, the fear of originality and others' failures at it.

Things aren't going forward in this industry. What would be called for in "looking at past games and their concepts" is to look back enough for those concepts to not already be the norm today, and how they might be able to enhance what is being done now, otherwise you won't really be getting anything new, just a rewarmed meal from yesterday with added salt and pepper (as evident from looking at GTA and all of its copycats, or the slew of these recent action RPG's that all look and work the same, and so forth...).

 

[Sardukhar]

Things aren't going forward in this industry. .

Aren't you a big fan of going backwards to Turn-based, though?

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Aren't you a big fan of going backwards to Turn-based, though?

Oh yes. And it's also always a puzzle to me how people think turnbased is somehow "backwards", but realtime for some other reason isn't when both have existed side by side (and in computer environs, I think RT was there first).

What is the "backwards" of it (specifically)?

But turnbased (or not) wasn't the point I was trying to make.

 

[Suhiira]

Oh yes. And it's also always a puzzle to me how people think turnbased is somehow "backwards", but realtime for some other reason isn't when both have existed side by side (and in computer environs, I think RT was there first).

What is the "backwards" of it (specifically)?

But turnbased (or not) wasn't the point I was trying to make.

I'm clueless on this matter too.
Turn-based is different, and VERY advantageous in tactical games. It's no more "backward" then a stick-shift, multiple ways to achieve the same results, each has their advantages and disadvantages.

 

[Sardukhar]

It's "backwards" because for many, many years, back in the day, TB and RTwP were the standards for RPGs. With a few exceptions like Ultima Underworld, the classics are all TB or RTwP. Bard's Tale, Wizardry, Ultima, FO1 and 2, PST, BG 1 and 2, etc. Movement might be live, but combat is either TB or RTwP.

Which you two know quite well.

VATS is seen as a compromise towards FO 1 and 2, but it is unusual and current VATS no longer allows for such retro-stylings.

Stick-shift is also retro - something like less than 5% of the cars in the USA are sold new with SS. Tech and times have moved on.

Modern players just aren't that interested in TB or any varieties thereof in significant numbers. Open-World games that feature TB are very rare and pretty niche. Sure, Divinity OS sold well - a tiny percentage compared to the RT RPGs. Less than 1/10th of W3, for example? Even smaller compared to FO4, I'm sure.

So if you want to talk about taking Open World games forward and being bold and new, TB is not that path, no more than the self-driving cars are going to be stick-shift.

Quite the opposite.

I don't know what the next brilliant iteration of Open World will look like, obviously. Something different, I'm sure, since as much as I like FO4, wandering around on foot being jacked by hostiles from time to time is a little stale. Witcher 3 did it better, but still..something was lacking. The Last Of Us wasn't really Open World at all, but it gave you the sense of being -in- the real world, so probably something with the freedom of FO4, the writing of W3, the dialogue of Fallout 2 and the combat/consistency of Last of Us.

Or maybe something like STALKER! Also great, kind of like Fallout on steroids.