There seem to be three major factions here on maps and related issues. Yes I am oversimplifying.
1. Do not have them. Too much handholding. Let the screen show what the character sees and let the player figure out where the character is and how to get to any intended destination.
2. Have full maps. Let players concentrate on gameplaying - this shouldn't be an exploration game. At least not a game where figuring out where you are or how to get places takes more time than actually doing things.
3. Have maps but exclude "magical elements". Just show what the character has seen not entire zones the character has never been to (the fog of war issue). Do not show enemies (e.g. red dots) unless the character is actually looking at them in which case let the character see them don't put them on the map. This summary excludes the cartography question - whether we should be able to make or buy usable maps.
Showing party members on the map (e.g. green dots) or putting an arrow on the screen even if not on the map pointing to something your character cannot see and shouldn't know about would be fine for advocates of position 2. My leaning is to position 3.
I think this type of UI optional indicator is fine. Personally I hope to be lost often and thus cause a considerable exasperated feeling in those that mistakenly assume I will be of some benefit to have around. If they can be assisted in locating the source of their misfortune I guess it could bring them some comfort.
I like the idea of directional arrows. It helps keep us oriented and much of it would be knowledge our character, who has peripheral vision, would know. Without it, there's always tab target, then /follow for a second, but that's a clunky workaround. Arrows can always fade beyond a certain distance.
There are degrees to the knowledge. Something like a green/red tracking dots on a map is well beyond the simplistic approach of arrows.
The effect is you can easily find your party, without necessarily easily getting to your party. To me this method of finding your party is preferable to the campfire summoning system VR has talked about in the past. It is a truly simplistic olive brach to promote grouping and speed up the process in the open world without negating travel and without ruining the function of maps. You have no idea where you and your party are on the map beyond what you can decipher as a player. You can still easily get lost or have trouble finding your way to your target, but you get a helping hand finding the people in your group.
As for people wanting to be lost often, if you have people who will wait forever for you after you take up a group slot that is fine and likely uncommon.
Umm.... Pantheon has had arrows on the party frames for a long time now: Click Here to see.
I am very keen for Pantheon to show what a character would know and only that. Also very keen for Pantheon to not unnecessarily replace social gaming with convenience. Also keen for Pantheon to make adventuring activities (like travelling together) meaningful.
For those reasons I tend to think no to a party member direction indicator.
Yes, it can be frustrating when you are getting to know a new area and party members are having to describe where they've gone, *but* to get to know a new area by experience and not just follow arrows on the UI is a much more realistic, meaningful and rewarding experience.
To need to talk to party members, describing your location and surrounding points of interest, strategising about meeting places and the dangers of getting/moving together is a more realistic, meaningful and rewarding experience.
To have to consider other party members when travelling in order to avoid getting lost or leaving people behind is a realistic, meaningful and rewarding experience.
I appreciate that not all quality of life features are needless convenience and not all 'realistic' features are worth their 'inconvenience' - I certainly don't want some painful survival simulation - but this one, even though I have experienced the frustration that sometimes occurs, I think is very much worth it.
Getting to know your environment and communicating with your party are fundamentals to a shared adventure and you don't get much more of a prime opportunity for those things than assembling a party.
Once your party gets together, actually communicating when it comes time to move and sticking together are also fundamentals to the social aspect of partying.
It's not just about convenience either, it's a good practice safety thing to stay together.
If you get folks that continually go AFK and cause delay, you talk to them.
Same if you get folks that continually move ahead. Same if the party wants to move faster than you know is a safe pace. Etc. Etc.
With arrows? It will become 'normal' to wander about separately at your own preferred pace, group leaders just assuming others are following, and people urging the party to stick together will get moaned at for being 'slow'.
To be clear, I wouldn't be against a close range thing, I suppose. You could say it's an analog for the low-level comms that should happen in a group. The question is do you want those comms to be a silently assumed thing replaced by UI arrows, or be a real part of the adventure, like any other, that doing well matters?
The arrow indicators in Embers are only a short range, just for those that didn't know. If you're out of range the indicator is not there. But, that is beside the point that I'll make.
I'm also very keen on Pantheon only showing what my character would know. But let's consider this. Your character is a short distance away from your group but you can not see them, maybe they are around a corner, or up on top of a cliff, or behind a grouping of trees etc. If sound were an element that our characters know in the world, we'd be able to hear our groupmates and get a good indication of where they were. I'd be yelling "Hey guys, where are you?" And they'd reply "Over here!" And I'd follow the sound of their voice. Of course this opens up other questions like "would mobs also get to hear you?" or "should this require a mechanic that would gives mobs an opportunity to agro?"
To clarify, my comments in favor of directional arrows is in regards to being reasonably close together. As you get farther apart, the arrows should fade and eventually disappear. I would further like a rough estimation of distance away (like the closer you are, the thicker the arrow).
My perspective is heavily influenced by playing healers. Fights can get very chaotic and it can be easy to lose a sense of where allies are, especially if there's lots of visual clutter. DPS seems to have all attended the same training course that teaches them to run out of range and try to break line of site with the healer any time they take damage.
I think a great compromise would be a compass, and on the compass could be "flare" indicators of the direction of party members, or perhaps the ranger could even use their flare ability to highlight/outline the party's location, temporarily visible through walls... that would actually be a sick ability to upgrade to highlight enemy outlines too... further lending to my opinion of all of the physical DPS classes being capable "pullers" (Monk's FD, and Rogue's CC... Allow the ranger to "track" enemies through obstacles at a certain distance to potentially line of sight pull).
disposalist said:With arrows? It will become 'normal' to wander about separately at your own preferred pace, group leaders just assuming others are following, and people urging the party to stick together will get moaned at for being 'slow'.
The solution to this is difficulty. Without difficulty people will do stupid stuff all the time. Arrows to find your party can be arrows to find the idiots corpse and the problem solves itself. People don't stick together because of the UI. They stick together because they have to. In current MMOs the more difficult of the content you do the more important teamwork becomes. Even with full map party tracking GPS everyone sticks together when the content is deadly.
The funny thing in Embers is you have to tell the random party members who run off harvesting or chasing butterflies or whatever that this feature exists so they can find the group again. People run around in safe areas all the time. The second you are in a hard area suddenly everyone is always together.
While I agree with disposalist and am not a fan of what I called "magic" interface indicators - things showing something that your character would not actually see - if the range was short enough I wouldn't have a problem. This would simply represent the ability to hear other people right near you.
But if the range went beyond the ability to hear movement and extended to yelling - that might not be too realistic unless every mob within range of the yell *also* heard it and reacted according to its nature and disposition. This could be simulated by a "yell" command that would both place an arrow on groupmates interfaces and alert every mob within a fairly large distance.
Although I agree that "glowing magical arrows" may be immersion-breaking for most (myself included), lets not try to overly use the argument of magical arrows being "unrealistic" in a high fantasy game with Ogres, Wizards and little incorpreal gnomes that live in a floating city and can summon beings from other dimensions :)
Darch - I am not saying you are wrong because this is so subjective, but my view is almost precisely the opposite. I think high fantasy needs "realism" more than other genres.
Why isn't realism in a high fantasy game an oxymoron? Because once you set the basic rules of the universe both players and developers should live within those rules, and rely on them being followed. Does it really matter if the "bad guys" are orcs and the "good guys" are elves or dwarves (or any other playable race) rather than the good guys being one real world faction and the bad guys being another? Does it really matter if magic works and technology does not? What was the famous saying? Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic? What was the rapidly produced and clever codicil? Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Why does high fantasy *need* realism - meaning complete consistancy with the basic laws set forth at launch? Because if anything whatever can happen without warning to reverse anything any player has done in reliance on the basic laws of the universe - nothing matters. Immersion is essentially impossible. We play purely for gear and levels and the world and stories that VR has spent so much time on mean nothing.
If we keep maps limited and limit the directional arrows to a reasonable range, that creates opportunities for fun magic / abilities that break / compensate for this rule.
Counterfleche said:If we keep maps limited and limit the directional arrows to a reasonable range, that creates opportunities for fun magic / abilities that break / compensate for this rule.
- Warrior "Rally" banner that shows on the group's maps.
- Cleric or Paladin beam of holy light which creates a vertical light beam emanating from the character which can be seen at night from a good distance away.
Excellent ideas. I'm sure there would/could be others. I would much rather these kind of meaningful and interesting world-based features than just slapping in a convenience UI element.
There are lots of things that are useful or useless depending on situation, but does that mean a fake UI element is a good idea?
Do they represent characters' natural echo location abilities? Leaving a trail of cotton? Continually shouting "marko!" and "polo!" while wandering around a dungeon full of monsters?
I mean, players being able to talk to each other when their characters aren't next to each other isn't very 'realistic' and I know it's not all about realism, but there is a line somewhere between total realism and just letting people teleport to each other at will.
What's so bad about talking to your group, actually looking around and then finding your way? Especially if it's only really in the most challenging of areas where you should be sticking together anyway? Dungeons are places where it feels even more important to stay close, coordinate your movements and not get lost? Isn't that a good/fun/exciting thing?
Are UI arrows the balance between proximity only chat and teleporting? Or is having group chat already quite a magical ability?
I realise what some people see as meaningful challenge others see as pointless frustration and I'm not saying anyone is 'wrong'. Just questioning.
Regardless of what all characters have, I think the Ranger's tracking ability should absolutely have a visible indicator (because staring at the chat doesn't "feel" like tracking). The indicator could be an arrow or glowing foot prints, idc... but there needs to be something for the Ranger. Perhaps it could change brightness/color depending on proximity too.
Tracking in EQ was quite dumb...
"Your target is to the right"
"Your target is to the right"
"Your target is straight ahead and to the right"
"Your target is behind you and to the left"
"Your target is behind you and to the left"
"Your target is above you and to the right"
"You have lost track of your target"
Meanwhile you just stood there and turned in tiny circles, waiting for the next text message, trying to get your target straight in front of you.
I also still think Rangers should have an ability to flare (outdoors) or use heightened senses (indoor) to be able to detect targets through obstacles at certain distances. (Similar to Daredevil or maybe Batman's sonar tech). That would make the Ranger highly desireable... compared to the Monk and Rogue which both have incredible tool kits.
I don't dislike the idea of aids to help find group members, near or far.
I do dislike something as artificial as an arrow on the screen.
ideas I liked in this thread, and to add...
fireworks
Pillar of light from a Mage
Ranger send the pet to lead the player back to camp.
Enchanter with a long distance "True North" type spell to turn the player in the direction of the group.
Sound, voices or a fire crackeling (if we had one lit) the player could hear it if facing the right direction.
Be creative, give us the tools to help ourselves with these types of problems. An arrow on the screen, just no thank you.
As someone that will get lost a lot. (I have a lousy sense of direction.). Hey Q where are you? I'm by a lot of trees...and rocks...does that help? Also... There's a snake nearby. I can only hope to join a forgiving guild where my shortcomings are balanced by my great dress outfits, and pithy comments. A do see a lot of hope in fireworks, light beams, pet tracking, etc. I had high hopes for a map making crafting option, but that's a lost hope.