Should minimaps and compasses be gone from RPGs?

[S.torch]

So, almost every modern RPG have some sort of minimap in their UI. Which seems rather strange, because they function like some sort of GPS in a game where exploration is a main part of it.

Should RPGs have minimaps?
Or should they have only a compass?
Should they have any maps at all?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

They're not the problem, the problem is the GPS-tier quest/objective tracking.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Catacombs]

Should RPGs have minimaps?

Yes.

Or should they have only a compass?

A compass is helpful, but it can be addition to the minimap

Should they have any maps at all?

Maps are helpful. How else does one get around the town/region/world?

But, as rusty said, the problem lies in quests that take you directly to the
place you need to go, leaving out the sense of exploration and unknown.

 

[S.torch]

But minimaps are GPS most of the time, if not all of it. I think there is not an single example of a game with a minimap and not having GPS tracking quests.
Ironically, games with the best exploration, don't have any maps at all. Like Dark Souls for example.

 

[undecaf]

They're not the problem, the problem is the GPS-tier quest/objective tracking.

That’s true, but then... Even the objective tracking can be a relative nonissue if it is tied to the characters relevant stats/skills (say, mapping, wits, comprehension and possibly even the ability to read) and the accuracy of the given information about the objective; so as to represent your PC’s understanding of the instructions and the land/location he’s traveling in.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Maps should be like how Thief did it. Drawn, a rough outline of the area, but still open to being wrong.

 

[Butter]

But minimaps are GPS most of the time, if not all of it. I think there is not an single example of a game with a minimap and not having GPS tracking quests.

Legends of Amberland. The problem LoA had, however, was that there was little incentive to use the first-person window for navigation instead of the overhead view provided by the mini-map. You only looked there when it was time for combat.

 

[conan_edw]

My preference

Overall map? Yes
Compass? Only if it shows NESW
Minimap? No

but if an RPG is in a modern sci-fi world, wouldn't make sense that you get a gps that points you to where ever you want?

 

[Swigen]

Been playing Bloodlines and I like that there’s no mini map or faggoty quest markers. You get around the city by reading directions and looking at maps posted by bus stops. It forces you to take in your environment and increases immersion. I mean, Bloodlines cities aren’t particularly massive or laid out realistically but you still buy into the world because of said immersion, certainly more so than if I was chasing around a red triangle to collect 10 glowy shapes or whatever the fuck. Couldn’t tell ya where Sanctuary is in Borderlands 3 but I can say for sure Kanker’s lair is down the alley across the street from The Last Round bar where the bum died.

 

[gestalt11]

Compass is super old, at least as old as Bard's Tale. Sure it was a spell but you basically had it up all the time. Auto-mapping is also very old, i.e. it only shows a map of where you have been so you don't have to do it on graph paper by hand. A ton of certified cRPG classics have both of these features.

 

[V_K]

They're not the problem, the problem is the GPS-tier quest/objective tracking.

And even that is not the problem, but rather having quests that boil down to "go to spot X". It's impossible to do objective-tracking in a game like Wizardry 7, for example.

 

[Gregz]

I'll just Google the map and tab out to read it anyway.

 

[Carrion]

Minimaps are almost always detrimental to exploration, although they're generally fine in strategy games or squad-based combat games where you need some kind of an overview of where your characters are at any given time. In RPGs you're usually better off without one. I'm fine with compasses that show you cardinal directions, but that's the only thing they should be showing.

They're not the problem, the problem is the GPS-tier quest/objective tracking.

For sure, but having that GPS marker on a separate map screen instead of a compass or a minimap already makes a pretty big difference. You'll be paying a lot more attention to the actual game world when there's not an always-visible magic arrow showing you the way, or a minimap displaying enemy positions and quest givers. Getting rid of the GPS altogether would be ideal, but crap like minmaps certainly contributes to turning games into mind-numbing motoric exercises that at some point start to feel like work.

 

[Valky]

Having access to a digital recording of the map isn't so much the issue, all that would do is save me from having to draw my own map. I still have to use said map in whatever form to navigate on my own. It should be important to distinguish where the challenge related to a map should be intended to come from. Rote memorization of directions, the layout of the land? That's not an impactful challenge, merely an inconvenience to place on the player. Intelligent navigation using a map via determining how to proceed and what to do on your own within the game given contextual hints placed throughout the world is the truly desired outcome of a map in the game. The problem is quest markers, which are so horrendously revolting and casualize the experience that they actively ruin things that were well designed by telling you where to go in situations where the challenge would have been to find out where to go. Because this is something that removes the intelligent navigation concept from the equation of a game entirely.

Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition, or Decline Edition as I like to think of it, is a fantastic example. The classic version of the game had no quest markers and all of the quests were things you had to figure out on your own. I had to go and talk to NPCs and read books I found in houses to learn about the world in order to logically deduce where I needed to go to complete my quest objectives. Said quest objectives would give me the what I needed to do, but the where was something I had to determine, as this was part of the interaction aspect unique to the video game entertainment medium where I was given the challenge to complete rather than watching it resolve in front of me.

BAM Decline Edition kicks down the fucking door and puts quest markers on the map for the quests, pinpointing exactly where you needed to walk to in order to find the location/item/person you needed to interface with as part of the quest objectives, absolutely obliterating every shred of questing that the game was originally designed for, turning it into a handheld point A to point B game like every other shit that is released. An entire living breathing portion of the gameplay mechanics rendered pointless, just like that. It would be similar to if a puzzle game like Legend of Grimrock had notes on the ground with the puzzle solution next to every puzzle in the game.

 

[Maggot]

Compass pointing in cardinal directions only and a separate map.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Minimaps are ok if they don’t reveal too much information, like pinpointing quest objectives. I prefer „in game maps“ that allow the player some basic orientation without being a GPS. Thief is a good example.

Quest compass needs to go.
Named quests and quest tracking need to go.

„Witcher senses“ and similar stuff need to go.

Journals should stop spelling everything out for the player. Recording information is ok but stop explaining every little detail.

I’m tired of stuff like detective quests that can be completed on autopilot because they are just glorified fetch/talk to NPC quests.

Fast Travel should be organically integrated into the game world. I liked the Temples with Teleporters in Betrayal at Krondor. They cost money and you have to visit them once before you can teleport to a specific temple. The Striders in Morrowind are another good example.

Exploration is non-existing in modern RPGs. I can’t play crap like the Witcher because I feel like a Hamster on wheel doing so.


Keep at least some veneer of your game being anything else than a glorified Skinner box.

 

[fantadomat]

Depends on the game. PB games are maybe the best one when it comes down to exploration.

Heaving no map is also pretty retarded,it makes absolutely zero sense that your hero couldn't do something that you could do easily in real life.

 

[Valky]

Minimaps are ok if they don’t reveal too much information, like pinpointing quest objectives. I prefer „in game maps“ that allow the player some basic orientation without being a GPS. Thief is a good example.

Quest compass needs to go.
Named quests and quest tracking need to go.

Journals should stop spelling everything out for the player. Recording information is ok but stop explaining every little detail.

I’m tired of stuff like detective quests that can be completed on autopilot because they are just glorified fetch/talk to NPC quests.

Exploration is non-existing in modern RPGs. I can’t play crap like the Witcher because I feel like a monkey doing so.

Good point on Thief, it truly was a shining example of an ideal type of in game map.
Essentially the problem you and many others are getting at is the difference between the following two
-Known facts
-Deducible observations as a result of known facts

This problem lies in things like a map in game. The map itself - known locations that the player character can be logically expected to have obtained - is simply a collection of known facts, useless to you if you don't know how to use it to solve the challenges placed upon you by the game through navigation. Quest markers/objectives/etc are the deducible observations as a result of the map locations in game, which are given to you thus robbing you of something that proper video games should be placing the onus on you as the player to find yourself.
Journals as well, recording information as you said, such as conversations word for word (or paraphrased) that you have had with NPCs in the game, item descriptions you've found in game, are known facts. Journals that then go a step further to record the deducible observations based on this information does the same as quest markers, spoiling the solution and cutting out portions of the interaction element that is unique to what defines a video game separate from other mediums of entertainment.

This is a purposely designed feature of course, cutting out the interaction element unique to video games is desirable when the modern target audience of nearly all video games are casuals who prefer their video games to be re-branded movies. Why should you put their soft and underdeveloped frontal cortex's through the effort to do when they can just watch it be done? In the end you get a happier audience who gives you more $$$ because you didn't make them think too hard and risk upsetting them. The modern audience didn't buy a video game to be forced to think, they bought it so you as the developer could give them a few hours of cheap disposable entertainment.

 

[Gibson]

maps and compass FTW; i don't really "get" mini-maps so i never use them.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Valky

Well said mate. Basically what most people want, at least rom their SP games, is watching a movie with only the illusion of an active role.

When Stadia said it will predict the player’s inputs to reduce latency this is just the logical conclusion of this model. Soon, players will be pressing awesome buttons for their dopamine kick while the games plays itself.

 

[Melcar]

I like minimaps, I don't use them, just love the look of them on the UI.

 

[Xunwael]

I need to find someplace IRL: I consult a map, then failing that, ask the nearest person to point me in the right direction until I find someone who does. I live in a town with some tourist spots, and during tourist season randoms from other countries walk up to me all the time. That's how you find your way in reality. And that's with roads and obvious signposts and clearly marked routes and everything.

Unless you can do the same in your RPG, leave the map and compass in. They're substitutes for the world being too poorly designed to provide all the directions that would be there IRL (such as signposts, in conspicuous locations that your eyes are naturally drawn to, not randomly placed in dumb spots by devs who can't put themselves in the place of the player), and for not being able to talk to the NPCs.

Alternatively, design the world well-enough and write enough dialogue for your NPCs that they can give directions this way. But nobody does that. It's too much work. So, instead, if the directions aren't provided in-game people just google them, because that's what comes naturally.

Maybe in a game where the exploration is the point or part of the challenge, or in a particular context in a game where it otherwise isn't (like when there are no NPCs around because you're in a dungeon or something), making the player have to consciously keep track of their environment makes sense.

But mostly, the omniscient guidance arrows are just replacements for not being able to ask directions or for the exploration being otherwise poorly implemented. Especially for open world RPGs like Bethesta's where you have to find shit like one generic NPC in a generic hovel somewhere in the wasteland who may or may not even be there based on the time of day and you can't tell if the location you've found is a house or a pile of rubbish. Or maybe he's in the third floor of the building on the right in a room where he sits in the corner two-thirds of the time and there's zero way of finding any of this out because you can't ask the nearby NPCs shit like "where's the guy I'm looking for?" because they can't afford VAs for that. Games like that, the omniscient arrow is necessary, though one might reasonably argue that's because they were designed with the omniscient arrow in mind, but I expect they didn't roll a dice and end up saddled with that arrow by happenstance and then just rolled with it. They went with the arrow because it's way easier for them.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Classic RPGs had all the stuff you described (sign posts, talking to NPCs, landmarks etc). Don’t pretend it’s some kind of utopian, unreachable design that was never present in CRPGs. Geez I wonder how I ever got around in games like Betrayal at Krondor or Wizardry 7 without the magic compass....

It’s true that most modern RPGs are incredibly lazy with that stuff to the point where you can’t find anything without actually using the quest markers and magic arrows, but in what kind of twisted circular logic is this a justification?

Game has shit world design where you can’t find anything -> therefore, it’s ok to put in quest markers -> therefore, shit world design is ok. Yeah, right.

 

[Valky]

I need to find someplace IRL: I consult a map, then failing that, ask the nearest person to point me in the right direction until I find someone who does. I live in a town with some tourist spots, and during tourist season randoms from other countries walk up to me all the time. That's how you find your way in reality. And that's with roads and obvious signposts and clearly marked routes and everything.

Unless you can do the same in your RPG, leave the map and compass in. They're substitutes for the world being too poorly designed to provide all the directions that would be there IRL (such as signposts, in conspicuous locations that your eyes are naturally drawn to, not randomly placed in dumb spots by devs who can't put themselves in the place of the player), and for not being able to talk to the NPCs.

Alternatively, design the world well-enough and write enough dialogue for your NPCs that they can give directions this way. But nobody does that. It's too much work. So, instead, if the directions aren't provided in-game people just google them, because that's what comes naturally.

Maybe in a game where the exploration is the point or part of the challenge, or in a particular context in a game where it otherwise isn't (like when there are no NPCs around because you're in a dungeon or something), making the player have to consciously keep track of their environment makes sense.

But mostly, the omniscient guidance arrows are just replacements for not being able to ask directions or for the exploration being otherwise poorly implemented. Especially for open world RPGs like Bethesta's where you have to find shit like one generic NPC in a generic hovel somewhere in the wasteland who may or may not even be there based on the time of day and you can't tell if the location you've found is a house or a pile of rubbish. Or maybe he's in the third floor of the building on the right in a room where he sits in the corner two-thirds of the time and there's zero way of finding any of this out because you can't ask the nearby NPCs shit like "where's the guy I'm looking for?" because they can't afford VAs for that. Games like that, the omniscient arrow is necessary, though one might reasonably argue that's because they were designed with the omniscient arrow in mind, but I expect they didn't roll a dice and end up saddled with that arrow by happenstance and then just rolled with it. They went with the arrow because it's way easier for them.

Following your last paragraph, one would ask, "so then why did they just go with the arrows because it's easier?". Because they don't have the budget? This is because they aren't properly prepared to make a video game. Why aren't they prepared with the expected resources to implement directions and interaction with the world to provide an interactive challenge versus an omniscient arrow? The answer is, because they did not come into the industry with the plan of making video games properly. This is due to a lack of passion and care for the medium. These companies do not make video games for a living because they are monetizing something they are passionate about or skilled at, they do it because the video game industry has blown up to be like any other entertainment industry, simply another market sector to move into based on the observed demand. As such, you have a majority of modern developers making video games for a living minus the passion for their job. It's just a paycheck, and the output shows.