Does Skellige suffer from a seriously faulty sense of scale?

[yagha]

Does Skellige suffer from a seriously faulty sense of scale?

I remember when I first saw a map of the area in which TW3 came out, and seeing how small it was compared to the rest of the Continent. I remember thinking to myself, "Awesome! Finally, a game developer that GETS it, that understands how big nations actually are, and how just a little part of a country (Like Velen or White Orchard).

Then, however, the game came out and I got to Skellige. Riding through towns and castles and looking at the map, I couldn't help but think to myself: "Hey, this is an ENTIRE NATION".

Skellige is simply TINY if you view it in that way. Reaching the end of the game, I couldn't even fathom how Hjalmar thought that he could put as much as a dent on Nilfgaard's defences; Nilfgaard could honestly invade all of Skellige with 5,000. Emhyr, in fact, seems to have realized this in-game, only bringing around a dozen ships to conquer the islands. And yet the game acts like Skellige can be so dangerous if all the clans work together under a strong king (Don't forget the fact that Geralt wipes out an entire clan's forces on his own).

Did anyone else feel this way about Skellige? I found it especially jarring, since CDPR always attained realistic scales in the past through several methods, such as by showing enormous army camps that, while they're inaccessible, actively gives an army of several thousand soldiers a presence within the game as opposed to having 'armies' of dozens of soldiers fighting each other.

 

[moonknightgog]

I remember when I first saw a map of the area in which TW3 came out, and seeing how small it was compared to the rest of the Continent. I remember thinking to myself, "Awesome! Finally, a game developer that GETS it, that understands how big nations actually are, and how just a little part of a country (Like Velen or White Orchard).

Then, however, the game came out and I got to Skellige. Riding through towns and castles and looking at the map, I couldn't help but think to myself: "Hey, this is an ENTIRE NATION".

Skellige is simply TINY if you view it in that way. Reaching the end of the game, I couldn't even fathom how Hjalmar thought that he could put as much as a dent on Nilfgaard's defences; Nilfgaard could honestly invade all of Skellige with 5,000. Emhyr, in fact, seems to have realized this in-game, only bringing around a dozen ships to conquer the islands. And yet the game acts like Skellige can be so dangerous if all the clans work together under a strong king (Don't forget the fact that Geralt wipes out an entire clan's forces on his own).

Did anyone else feel this way about Skellige? I found it especially jarring, since CDPR always attained realistic scales in the past through several methods, such as by showing enormous army camps that, while they're inaccessible, actively gives an army of several thousand soldiers a presence within the game as opposed to having 'armies' of dozens of soldiers fighting each other.

A compromise is needed.
You can't build an entire archipelago whitout put a lot of empty spaces, mostly on sea.

 

[dzbrown]

I don't know...Cape Verde is a nation and it's not particularly large. I thought Skellige was of suitable size, and the map itself feels even larger when you choose to sail from place to place rather than fast travel everywhere. I was pretty satisfied with the size, geography, and general feel of the place. I felt it fit the culture well. When I first arrived, I bought all the maps and would zip from place to place, which cheapened the experience...once I limited myself to boat and horse travel, it felt entirely different.

From a militaristic perspective, just because the land mass isn't large doesn't mean it that conquering it would be a pushover. The people of Skellige are pretty adept at naval warfare and the geography and weather would really hamper a large invasion force. Look what happened to the Spanish Armada...

 

[Eesti]

if you check the maps on the wiki you'll see that skellige is infact really small but about the "skelligers united could be a problem" thing its true because they keep raiding and even emhyr wouldnt stand a chance even if nilfgaard occupies their land as they would keep rebelling, the only thing he can do is extermiate them (like a dalek would do)
a guy from the continent cannot rule skellige they are too proud to be ruled by an emperor from the continent and they would rather die than listening to someone's command thats why skellige is a big problem.

 

[MistroPain]

While I get what you are trying to get at, I think there is a misconception that the world has always consisted of large countries.

Most history is littered with all the big countries we know today as tiny fragments of much smaller countries. Look at todays luxembourg, the Vatican City, and Malta. I think Skellige is normal sized (when looking at the normal overview map), particularly when considering its inhospitable nature (IE, it hasnt been conquered cause no one wants it).

Not to mention, 5,000 is a LOT of soldiers, if this game is designed around the medieval timeframe (or whatever the Witcher equivalent would be), then its worth having a quick read on battles like Agincourt, where countries pretty much went all in with armies of about 6k vs 15k (English and French respectively).

http://abload.de/img/thewitchermap9lkr9.png
Its worth looking at that map, thats not small at all?

EDIT: BTW when I say all in, I dont mean their entire armies, just the outcome of the battle was vital for both sides. France = kicking England out, England = re-establishing themselves as a force.

 

[Zeroscape]

I'm with @dzbrown on this.

There are parts that feel pretty tight where a horse can be an annoyance, but I felt that fit the viking sensibilities. The islands themselves were interesting and a very refreshing experience after Velen and Novigrad. It wasn't just a different biome. It was like a splash of cold water because the people and culture were so different.

Edit: It was the different accents of the voice-overs that 'sold' Skellige to me.

The only thing I begrudge Skellige for is the water.
One, the sea should've had more variety in how rough it could get based on the weather. Sailing during a storm should be extremely dangerous if you fail to navigate the huge waves correctly. But I guess they had issues preventing the water clipping through the bottom of our tiny boats so they limited the swells. Shame though.

Secondly, I'd have liked to see more water effects on the shoreline. Water crashing into rocks causing spray to shoot up into the air, more water movement on the beaches and even a tidal system with water receding/rising at specific times would be really cool. I'm thinking here of Geralt's adventure in the short story "A Little Dedication".
Though these things require a lot of work to implement and they likely had their hands full as it was. Just my 0.02 cents though.

 

[DuranA]

The problem with Skellige is that although the central Island was OK every other Island was very small.

 

[yagha]

I don't know...Cape Verde is a nation and it's not particularly large. I thought Skellige was of suitable size, and the map itself feels even larger when you choose to sail from place to place rather than fast travel everywhere. I was pretty satisfied with the size, geography, and general feel of the place. I felt it fit the culture well. When I first arrived, I bought all the maps and would zip from place to place, which cheapened the experience...once I limited myself to boat and horse travel, it felt entirely different.

From a militaristic perspective, just because the land mass isn't large doesn't mean it that conquering it would be a pushover. The people of Skellige are pretty adept at naval warfare and the geography and weather would really hamper a large invasion force. Look what happened to the Spanish Armada...

Well, if you look at that map that came with the physical copy of the game that shows Skellige (An entire state) and Velen (A province in Temeria), it does seem somewhat off. Although there are countless problems with that map.

As for the Spanish Armada, there is really no doubt that if the Spaniards had landed their Tercios they would have defeated any land forces the English threw at them (The Spanish Tercios dominated the European continent for over 200 years). Similarly, I'm pretty sure that the Nilfgaardian Army, which has conquered practically every foe on the Continent, is similarly capable.

Seriously, just looking at what we're presented with in the game (A dozen Nilfgaardian ships already docked at Undvik, and a few hundred Skellige warriors scattered across the islands), I just don't see how I'm supposed to take Skellige seriously in the plot.

While I get what you are trying to get at, I think there is a misconception that the world has always consisted of large countries.

Most history is littered with all the big countries we know today as tiny fragments of much smaller countries. Look at todays luxembourg, the Vatican City, and Malta. I think Skellige is normal sized (when looking at the normal overview map), particularly when considering its inhospitable nature (IE, it hasnt been conquered cause no one wants it).

Not to mention, 5,000 is a LOT of soldiers, if this game is designed around the medieval timeframe (or whatever the Witcher equivalent would be), then its worth having a quick read on battles like Agincourt, where countries pretty much went all in with armies of about 6k vs 15k (English and French respectively).

http://abload.de/img/thewitchermap9lkr9.png
Its worth looking at that map, thats not small at all?

EDIT: BTW when I say all in, I dont mean their entire armies, just the outcome of the battle was vital for both sides. France = kicking England out, England = re-establishing themselves as a force.

You're right, but I'm pretty sure Malta and Luxembourg are at least a thousand times bigger than Skellige as it's shown in the game (With an overall population of several hundred to a few thousand). On the other hand, Velen could very well be a small section of 16th-century Poland.

As for army sizes, Nilfgaard can apparently field 300,000 (Or even 350,000) men in the Second Northern War. While I personally think that this number is pretty unreasonable for a 16th-century empire, it's what we're working with.

 

[dzbrown]

To me, the more glaring issue was that I thought ("wishful thinking" potential spoilers for Act 2 and 3 ahead, don't read if you haven't made it this far):

Spoiler

We didn't see any actual battles take place. I honestly and truly thought that the 'world state' would change in Act 2 and we would begin to see fighting in certain contested areas, especially in No Man's Land (Velen) and some ship skirmishes in Skellige. Instead, strangely enough, we don't see a single ship with NPCs on it at all in Skellige, not fishermen, not a patrolling Skelligan longboat, not one Nilfgaardian warship, nothing (outside of two cut scenes). In Velen, we see the soldiers continuing to walk around in circles in their respective camps, never leaving it. I really thought we would see some fighting at some point in the game to give us a sense of the strife and chaos happening around us. It would have lent so much to the atmosphere. It would give both the impression of Geralt's neutrality (if chosen) or even his involvement if a choice was ever made to 'really side with one of the actors'. Instead all we get to really affect the world state is a single quest or a decision for Ciri. Geralt's main quest was completely singular and the political "calm before the storm" persisted throughout the entire game rendering current events and the atmosphere lifeless and stuck in a perpetual static state.

All we got was narrative snippets of current events from time to time, Crach or Hjalmar or another random Skelligan NPC talking about "sails on the horizon". This left me feeling like we have no sense of scale to this conflict or the world, for that matter. We never get to see the actual size or scale of the Nilfgaardian forces other than soldiers standing around in a camp, we never get to see the actual size of their fleet, we never get to see the 'tactical and strategic brilliance' of the northern coalition's self-proclaimed leader. And you could never even guess at any time that Nilfgaard was being pressured and/or exhausted in the least bit except by being told that fact in a cut scene. This, to me, is what would have made the scale of the world all the richer, not necessarily just the scale of the map, but the events, and their impact, happening within it.

Edit: I guess you do get to see the Nilfgaardian fleet when you try to rescue Fringilla, but it feels like they are sitting in a parking lot having a tail gate party.

 

[mp84]

While the size of Skillage at least for me didn't bother me as much , the one thing that kind of did is the lack of good discovery points.

It seemed to me 60-65% points in Skillage were simply Smuggling Caches... I get it, there's a lot of water in Skillage, but I just wish there was more of the other variety. To me Valen/Novigrad hit down pat with their discovery points, where as in Skillage they simply got a bit lazy than.

 

[MistroPain]

You're right, but I'm pretty sure Malta and Luxembourg are at least a thousand times bigger than Skellige as it's shown in the game (With an overall population of several hundred to a few thousand). On the other hand, Velen could very well be a small section of 16th-century Poland.

I think the point I was trying, and failing badly, at making is that I doubt Skellige is proportionally built. Novigrad is meant to be one of the biggest cities, and yet it is tiny, I doubt you can house 5,000 people in real life if you were to use a proportionately sized city (assuming your not squashing everyone into the buildings).

If I were to use a ruler on the map I posted earlier you can see the distance between Novigrad and Oxenfurt is about 1cm, and Ard Skellige is about 2cm, so arguably the developers should have made Ard Skellige at least twice the size of that space between Novigrad and Oxenfurt, which I think it is (do not have the time to measure it sadly, but it feels like it?).

Take my words with a pinch of salt though, as I have no clue if that map is referenced correctly...

And with regards to dzbrown, I fully agree that it was disappointing to not see any skirmishes, but to be honest I doubt the Engine could deliver those battles, at least not on PS4, as soon as you get like five or so wraiths on one screen it starts to lag and go below 30FPS. I would rather not watch small skirmishes of five or so people going at it as it would do the opposite atmospherically IMO.

 

[yagha]

I think the point I was trying, and failing badly, at making is that I doubt Skellige is proportionally built. Novigrad is meant to be one of the biggest cities, and yet it is tiny, I doubt you can house 5,000 people in real life if you were to use a proportionately sized city (assuming your not squashing everyone into the buildings).

If I were to use a ruler on the map I posted earlier you can see the distance between Novigrad and Oxenfurt is about 1cm, and Ard Skellige is about 2cm, so arguably the developers should have made Ard Skellige at least twice the size of that space between Novigrad and Oxenfurt, which I think it is (do not have the time to measure it sadly, but it feels like it?).

Take my words with a pinch of salt though, as I have no clue if that map is referenced correctly...

You're defintely correct about Novigrad, that was actually the main flaw in my argument. Oxenfurt, in a sense, is even worse off.

Nonetheless, the fact remains that White Orchard and Velen feel incredibly well-proportioned as far as game design goes. I actually recently thought to myself that they should have scrapped Oxenfurt and made Novigrad bigger.

I just remember how impressed I was when, playing TW2, I realized that Act 1 encompassed only a relatively small town and its sorrounding wilderness. If you use that description for most games, the setting will be seriously tiny, but the fact that Act 1's map was so big yet the setting so comparatively 'small' made it feel so much 'realer'. Like, what's the point in having a game take place in the capital city of a great kingdom if you can cross it in two minutes?

Maybe I'm just too ambitious as far as fantasy videogames go, but TW2 really pulled it off, so I had similar expectations for TW3.

 

[Horwath1]

The scale of the map didn't bother me. I found it difficult to navigate. When I would look for my quest icon on the map I couldn't find it in relation to my avatar. Also, there is a weird bug where the little dots that guide you to your objective bug out. So, I just found it easier to not even use the mini map in The zone. Finding the tools for the master armor quest was a real pita because the mini map thingy wasn't working.

 

[-Bizzy-]

Well, the reason is simple. CD Projekt wanted Skellige original to be double the size, this would have been a more "realistic" scaling in comparision to Velen and Novigrad. But they soon realized, that they couldn't fill it with enough content to keep it intressting.

So well maybe, they could have just made Ard Skellig available, but it seems they wanted to go with several islandes (Keep the "archipelago feeling"). Still better scale wise then most games solve this issue (Skyrim or Oblivion for example with their famous village capitals).

But it's clear that in lore, while Skellige is a small nation, the clans and islands are bigger in relation to Velen as they are ingame.

 

[Vim88pl]

As for the Spanish Armada, there is really no doubt that if the Spaniards had landed their Tercios they would have defeated any land forces the English threw at them (The Spanish Tercios dominated the European continent for over 200 years). Similarly, I'm pretty sure that the Nilfgaardian Army, which has conquered practically every foe on the Continent, is similarly capable.

Except, that Nilfgaardian Army has been defeated in first, second and - if we do nothing - they will be defeated in third war.

That said, with open world, we will always have problem with scale - just look for Gothic III or Skyrim

 

[MarkPiasecki]

Hi guys,

Novigrad is meant to be one of the biggest cities, and yet it is tiny, I doubt you can house 5,000 people in real life if you were to use a proportionately sized city (assuming your not squashing everyone into the buildings).

This is actually wrong. It may not look like this but 5,000 people is perfectly fine with city of this size. Take a look at Toruń - one of well preserved medieval (I'd say mostly XIV - XVI century buildings and original XIII streets layout) polish cities. Here's a painting from 1641:

http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plik:Torun_Merian_1641.jpg

It shows original, medieval walls. Doesn't look like it, but it's population was more or less 20,000 in XIV - XV century. Now, we could argue about this, but if Novigrad is four times smaller than Toruń of (late) medieval era, 5,000 looks quite realistic. Is it actually four times smaller? I'd say is more like half the size. My point is, Novigrad is in my opinion the first medieval-like city of believable size and population.

Oxenfurt on the other hand not so much. But here my main problems are:
- no city walls (like, srsly guise?)
- street layout (Novigrad gives that nice feeling of squalor, whereas Oxenfurt feels a bit empty)

And back on topic, maybe in ten years, with 10x the staff and 10x the budget we will see something like Skellige in believable proportions. It's exactly the same with Skyrim, which is a whole province with no more than a thousand NPCs. It's just harder to scale down a kingdom, duchy or an archipelago, because they require more people, more settlements in a much bigger area to be believable. Still, I think it's better than in Skyrim because of the coherent climate. No Poland to the North Pole in 5 minutes So a small improvement in my book