Open World Design: Zone of Influence
Vložit
- čas přidán 12. 11. 2018
- Let's talk about one particular theory of open world design. Basically, I think this approach is underused and very promising.
Fundamentally, it's like this: create hubs of a certain kind of play with outlying points of interest. Make sure the player can see those outlying points of interest from around a minute out, so that they naturally gravitate towards them if they are interested in that kind of play.
Arrange your map so that no POI is visible from another POI, and use travel along the roads to reveal other POI and minor play elements of the sort the player is expecting given the type of play attached to the POI at the end of the road. - Jak na to + styl
I think you nailed the explanation. Some complain about Skyrim's world being "too dense" but that's what keeps you engaged. Other games that brag about creating bigger worlds end up making empty worlds where they are forced to guide the player with question marks and "look here" markers. Their worlds are reduced to running from marker to marker with no sense of real exploration.
& here I just turn ugrid to 11 & see everything across the map.
2 years later starfield is an excellent example of what you're talking about
Just watching this type of level design explanation makes me appreciate why DayZ is so variable. Apart from the physical map and attractions ( like wells / medical buildings / military buildings etc ) every gunshot you hear is a possibility for a completely random new destination and course of action . That gunshot could mean a cache of high value items if you manage to track and snipe......but it comes with the risk that you yourself might lose that confrontation . When you know the maps of a wide open world really well you have no need of visible markers.....you start listening instead .
this can be turned into a program/algorythm i can imagine. procedurally generated worlds dont have to be boring and random and directionless. using these lanes you can plant different teachings and lessons about your game along the nodes, not just different gameplay, that build upon each other like in a handcrafted experience. imagine a world that feels handcrafted but isnt and just has handcrafted-grade theory programmed into the world generation. there is no looking up secrets and tricks on the wiki because every world is unique and truly personal that you have to explore completely by yourself
So you want ai devs lol
While it's not as immediate or impactful as seeing it directly, you can intellectually signpost things as well (better as a backup or in addition to visual landmarks). Overhearing NPCs "you'll have to talk to Eorlund Greymane" or reading a journal entry about "the mysterious tower outside of town" can help to plant the seed in their head and then when they see them it's been established and foreshadowed.
Juste want to say Thank you, i'm using CZcams go now, i couldn't comment on a previous video, it is the one where I fist bump the screen when you said, I mean demonstrate, that Mario and final fantasy are the same underlying logic, that is the basic of level design, you nail the part where other tutorial don't tell that at all, only missing was the simple assertion that level design is simply "designing progression of the game", that is even a skill tree is level design. I wasn't super convinced by the deus ex example but that doesn't matter much, so good job putting these concept in simple presentation!
Also I wonder what you would think of starlink battle for atlas, it's an answer to no man's sky, it does a lot of interesting thing, though they miss the theming.
Also fortnite does A LOT of interesting thing that get lost in discussion because it's the mainstream kif game dujour, people love to snob those kind of success regardless if actual merits. But an open world multiplayer shooter with dynamic environment (unlike other battle royal gamed) is something I have seen attempt and failed for obvious reason until now. I feel this game is such a leap in the game design vocabulary of shooter!
Oups not meant to be an answer to you :(
That kind of hinting has its place, but for letting the player subconsciously choose the right time to switch gears, I think a visual is needed.
Heavily underrated channel. Very insightful and most importantly something one can act on. You, Sir, just got another subscriber
Thanks and welcome
Without really having tried out anything, I have the feeling that this is the single most usable game design tutorial I have seen so far. In school I also wanted do make "some awesome game", best story, open world etc. and of course had major problems to get anything started from developing a base concept and "putting stuff into the world", just as you described. I realized this problem sooner or later but didn't find any useful information on "how to get started" - this video feels like exactly the thing I was missing. Well, now I'm studying and don't really have the time to try and start super games with the content of three triple A games all on my own... XD
While I'm at it, I want to say that I'm really enjoying your content. Maybe it does come useful sometime.
Very interesting. I feel like, in D&D, you’d do the same thing but with rumors that point players toward different points of interest. But rumors don’t need proximity, so you can clue players in to adventures on the coast but also to a pyramid tomb in the far-off desert.
This video really gave me a lot to work with. Thank you.
This is ridiculously helpful! Thank you!
Wow, really great video, you definitely know what you're talking about, thanks for sharing!
Soo Good thank you for making this. :)
Thanks :)
Just discovered this, really awesome stuff! I would suggest when you say things like „don’t have circular roads, it’s a terrible idea“ or „you should not see sub-POIs“ that you give more insight as to why.
he kinda touched on it later. you dont want the player to 'miss' the focus point and orbit around without noticing.
if the roads all circle back to each other what that means in a micro scale is that there's always another road coming out of the content youre leading people into. if youre travelling through the road and as you approach what was supposed to be the end, you see more road, the chance of you taking it is now more than zero, a pacing mistake waiting to happen, and it can lead a distracted player to tour around a big part of the content without ever engaging properly with it.
if you think about it, you kinda want the player to backtrack out of focus points instead of fluidly getting in and out.
if the content at the end of a road is supposed to be a focus point, you want to have something 'inside' it for the player to engage with long/intensely enough for them to go out of 'road mode' and forget about the macro world for a bit while doing it.
so that, whenever theyre done, they can have this transition back to road mode, in the way of literally walking themselves back to the road
Nice video
We'll have to wait and see, but I'm pretty sure you just predicted Starfield's map 4 years ahead of release.
pfooh well this sure didnt age well ...
Thanks for the explanation!
On a side note, using the lighthouse as an example for something that shouldn't be visible from other POI is a bit funny, since it kinda makes it a bad lighthouse xD
so great tuts,i 'll wirte your name on my game's thank list
Cool! Where did you learn this?
Starlink battle for atlas definetly attempt the directed story open world space game, IMHO it has succeeded in establishing a template but failed at using an interesting narrative world. But it's basically mass effect for kid, without the needed energetic writing.
Nice video, thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Personally, I would think that only 1 POI is visible from the other is too strict. Wouldn't we prefer player at least to see 2-3 options when in the wilderness?
The other unrelated topic that I wanted to comment is, the game will be very predictable or systematic if you see a POI far away and you already know what type of gameplay it will offer.
As a player, I would rather be drawn to a POI without knowing what gameplay or story it will offer me, so that it will potentially end up surprising me.
Seeing only one POI is pretty normal, because a game is played over time. You're moving towards the next town, you see a POI, then you see another POI, then another, then another. You are attracted to some, and ignore others. You may occasionally see two, if one of them is a mapwide landmark, but the point is that the pressure comes and goes.
I think POIs should clearly associate with their gameplay in games where there are different modes of gameplay, because it allows a player to switch modes casually, without even consciously thinking about it. But I won't force you to build things "my way", obviously: you do you.
Also you cant simply arrange things according to intrigue, you must first arrange them acccording to verisimilitude. For example if something is placed for intrigue or to fill space but it might not make sense anyone would build it there or as another example, leave a visible dubgeon unlooted, we cannot allow for that kind of design.
Amazing video, thank you so much. I was just wondering, how would these principles apply to 2D worlds? Are they fundamentally different, or do zones of influence communicate their types of play through terrain? (e.g. the closer to a city, the more cultivated the landscape becomes)
Well, I think that depends on if and how you allow free roaming. The point of this is to lure the player properly and allow them to choose where to head, so the more locked-in the players path and the less they can see, the more challenging it becomes.
Thanks alot for your reply!
How would you aproach this if the game was set underground? i imagine is the oposite problem, finding ways to let the player know there's something of interest in a certain direction, rather than hiding it, light would also play a bigger factor all the time. What are your thoughts?
I've been thinking about this sort of thing since posting the video. Since my focus right now is on letting the player get lured into different patterns of play when they want to change patterns of play, it's also possible to use "micropulls".
For example, a road means people. Claw marks mean monsters. Magic runes on the walls mean evil mages.
So rather than seeing a specific POI, you could use micropulls to lure them in the right direction.
@@CraigPerko That's a good idea, could also be used to guide the player into veins of resources aswell, i fthe game has that sort of thing. thanks for answering
Lighting and environment changes can lead you, so can sound. A purple light spilling out into a dark tunnel will tell you something is definitely going on down there - or the sound of rushing water as you walk by an area will lead you to it. Maybe you pick up the threads of an old mine cart system. You can place props so they lead a player -a shovel on the ground makes a perfect arrow for "go this way", or the mine cart tracks act like a road for a player to follow. Wires running along a wall will do the same thing and could indicate a city, or a dig site, or anything else that needs power. Ambient light color shifts can telegraph this too. Just some examples.
large, open caverns with lots of tunnels sound good. One tunnel is noticeably bigger than the others. BOOM, interest.
Really interesting video!
Can someone explain to me again why you shouldn't be able to see different points of interest simultaneously?
In this case, the point is to allow the player to switch to whatever interests them when they feel they want to. So they're focused on what they're currently doing, and then a POI slides by. If they care, they can change focuses.
@@CraigPerko interesting. Playing Elden Ring atm and thinking through how this applies. Slightly different because in terms of gameplay "types" Elden is more limited than, say, Witcher 3.
13:19 I'm sorry, I did not understand. Why can't you see two objects (POI) at the same time? What's bad about it? For example, seeing from one point (POI), another interesting object (POI), he can go to it. Is it bad?
6:46 Why won't the player leave Zone A and B?
In both cases, the answer isn't that it's impossible, it's that you want to offer the player something they find fun without overwhelming them with other options.
Question: what about Dark Souls and how they like showing the entire world in the distance?
Is that bad, or something different? Is it just another way of doing things?
How much of that entire world can you see? What purpose does being able to see it have?
The Dark Souls team asked themselves those questions and came up with good answers.
big boi Tim I think there’s an important point which wasn’t in the video. The decision to choose which content you want to pursue is based whether you’re able to engage with the content.
If you can’t engage with the content, then you’re not making a choice of which content you want to do.
Here, in the video, if the player can see the content, then they can engage with it. They can make the choice whether to go to a town or a farm or a bandit castle, as long as they can see it. And they know that if they choose one of these, there will be content to experience.
When dark souls shows you all their content from a high tower or balcony, you aren’t going to be able to engage with that content for a long time, and so you aren’t choosing which content you want to pursue from that vantage point. Instead, it’s just teasing the player with all the interesting stuff they’ll do in the future.
Similarly, in Skyrim, you can see the companions guild and the Jarl’s castle from the same vantage point. However, you wouldn’t make the choice between which content you want to pursue because they don’t normally have content to experience at the same time.
After finishing the first few quests, the Jarl’s castle in Whiterun becomes almost useless. Then, from that vantage point, the only content which matters is the companions guild.
TL;DR yes, it’s important to control which content the player can see but it only matters if it’s content that the player can engage with and the player expects that the content has things for them to do.
Hope this helps answer the question.
@@orddro6657 This is great, everything you said makes sense. Do you have a background in something game-design ish?
big boi Tim Well I’m currently trying my hand at game development, as an indie dev, but I’ve spent a lot of thinking about these kinds of things and an obscene amount of time watching these kinds of videos on game design.
If you have any topics on game design you’d like to explore like level design, health, difficulty, the unity game engine, music, procedural generation, or any other topic...there’s a good chance that I have a few videos or online resources that would interest you.
It would also give me joy to know that someone else is gaining from the knowledge I’ve acquired through my internet investigations.
Is there any topic you’d like to learn more about?
@@orddro6657 I'd love to add you somewhere for the occasional talk about design and such. It's so interesting but I don't think anyone I know would agree with me
How would you say fallout new vegas differs from skyrim in this domain?
Pokemon devs should have watched this before making scarlet and violet 😵💫
Too bright, I cannot see