I don't think Breath of the Wild's world is rewarding at all because there is a literal lack of reward for exploring it. Was it beautiful? Sure. Did I walk places just to "see" what was over there? Sure. Was I consistently let down by the realization that I was never going to find anything to augment my abilities or a new power or anything that made me feel like I've uncovered some kind of awesome secret thing? Absolutely.
The thought of playing Breath of the Wild a second time just makes me want to vomit and I think it's one of the prime examples of how *not* to do an open world if you want the game to be more than a glorified walking simulator.
Now I'm not saying it isn't a totally fun and ridiculous playground for the ability set they give you, but they give you all of them right at the start and outside of the 4 cooldowns you get from the four dungeons that's all she wrote.
Considering one of my favorite things about BotW is how much you are rewarded for exploring it, this is weird to read. Are you just discounting the shrines, korok seeds, great fairies, weapon spawn points, materials, etc? Or are they just not the type of reward you want? I get that people might not consider them very interesting, but they are definitely rewards, and you get noticeably stronger for having gathered them. I mean I'm not even including the divine beasts and the master sword, all of which you have to wander around and find.
Yes I'm discounting Shrines.
What's over here? Oh another shrine.
What's inside the Shrine? Oh, another orb.
Is this a unique weapon? No, it's more generic breakable nonsense like the rest.
Finding armors to play dress up was about the only thing the game had that felt worthwhile to find.
There some YouTube commentaries about how Western open world game studios got salty because Elden Ring and Breath of the Wild are a threat to their cookie cutter collect-a-thons.
Breath of the Wild is also a collect-a-thon. Hundreds of Orbs and Korok Seeds with little to no returning value individually but only rewards based on X quantities.
I'd also argue that Elden Ring is absolutely a collect-a-thon in its own right, but it's one where you actually *want* to go out and find all of the various weapons, armors, spells, and rings to collect.
What confused the Ubisofts of open world design is how hands off both of these games are. They didn't care if you saw their worlds or not. The player was free to do whatever they wanted to do.
Till my dying breath, I will never agree with how FROM teaches gameplay and I have never enjoyed a FROM Souls without clinging to a wiki when I'm frustrated.
There is just so much that players must unlearn from action games like Devil May Cry and Hyrule Warriors or whatever to enjoy a Souls that Souls games continue to fail to teach. Like that in weighty combat, every swing of a weapon or shuffle of the feet is life or death, or that button mashing is death.
But I find the exploration and world of both Elden Ring and Breath of the Wild to be the games I enjoyed for long periods of time without reaching for a wiki.
I 100% disagree. I love BotW because it is the antithesis to modern open world game design, which usually means a place littered with collectibles to check off an imaginary list. Yes, there *are* 800 or so korok seeds, but it took the community to even realize that afair - they're there if you want them, but you only really need a fraction of those for gameplay reasons. The rest are there if you want/enjoy them.
I don't think Breath of the Wild's world is rewarding at all because there is a literal lack of reward for exploring it. Was it beautiful? Sure. Did I walk places just to "see" what was over there? Sure. Was I consistently let down by the realization that I was never going to find anything to augment my abilities or a new power or anything that made me feel like I've uncovered some kind of awesome secret thing? Absolutely.
The thought of playing Breath of the Wild a second time just makes me want to vomit and I think it's one of the prime examples of how *not* to do an open world if you want the game to be more than a glorified walking simulator.
Now I'm not saying it isn't a totally fun and ridiculous playground for the ability set they give you, but they give you all of them right at the start and outside of the 4 cooldowns you get from the four dungeons that's all she wrote.
Considering one of my favorite things about BotW is how much you are rewarded for exploring it, this is weird to read. Are you just discounting the shrines, korok seeds, great fairies, weapon spawn points, materials, etc? Or are they just not the type of reward you want? I get that people might not consider them very interesting, but they are definitely rewards, and you get noticeably stronger for having gathered them. I mean I'm not even including the divine beasts and the master sword, all of which you have to wander around and find.
Yes I'm discounting Shrines.
What's over here? Oh another shrine.
What's inside the Shrine? Oh, another orb.
Is this a unique weapon? No, it's more generic breakable nonsense like the rest.
Finding armors to play dress up was about the only thing the game had that felt worthwhile to find.
There some YouTube commentaries about how Western open world game studios got salty because Elden Ring and Breath of the Wild are a threat to their cookie cutter collect-a-thons.
Breath of the Wild is also a collect-a-thon. Hundreds of Orbs and Korok Seeds with little to no returning value individually but only rewards based on X quantities.
I'd also argue that Elden Ring is absolutely a collect-a-thon in its own right, but it's one where you actually *want* to go out and find all of the various weapons, armors, spells, and rings to collect.
What confused the Ubisofts of open world design is how hands off both of these games are. They didn't care if you saw their worlds or not. The player was free to do whatever they wanted to do.
Ok, so when you say 'there is a literal lack of reward for exploring it' what you meant was 'I didn't like the rewards for exploring it'. It's fine to dislike the game but please don't just make up wrong facts about the game because you didn't like it.
Yeah, I think that is completely missing the point of what BotW is about. Which is fine to dislike, but that is making the game out to be something it is decidedly, emphatically not
Not really a open world game but Corporation/Cy-Cop on the genesis was die and learn a lot
As i did play the souls games with the same ideal
In BoTW I really did walk around as I had no idea what to do. But I remember liking how equipment could break but that is all I remember from my 5 hours of play
0
Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
I honestly really enjoyed exploring in BotW. And honestly I think finding cool locations was a reward on its own, at least to me. "This area is really pretty" or "hey this is a cool reference to Skyward Sword!" or "wow this area has really interesting environmental storytelling, I wonder what happened here?" I mean, there were also weapons and treasures and shrines and stuff like that to find too. But I honestly just really enjoyed the pure exploring part. I like just exploring and learning about the world. But everyone is different of course, that's fine too
Playing BotW again for the first time in six years and oh god I'm sucked in again. The huge world map isn't dense with stuff to find/collect, but somehow traversing it and wondering what the hell you'll find over that next hill is more interesting than most open-world games that expect you to frantically dash from map icon to map icon. Stumbling into a minor Korok puzzle is much more rewarding than arriving at that clearly marked location that has you do the same thing at the other six similar locations. It's like you're constantly playing a very low-key puzzle. Hm, how will I get over there? What's up with those three trees in a row?
I naively thought after BotW came out it would change open-world games for the better, but it turns out making a truly intriguing and rewarding world that isn't just an icon dash takes thought and work. I mean, it took us six years to get the sequel, and they already had a ton of stuff in mind when they started.
I almost wrote this exact post yesterday - the sense of excitement and freedom of exploration felt like they’d completely obviated the need for Ubisoft-collectathons or Bethesda-jankiness, and I was excited to see what came next in the open world space.
The answer was kind of nothing, then Elden Ring, and now a new Zelda.
I get that the real accomplishment was one of level design (finding a way to guide and encourage the player without relying on old and clumsy false barriers and heavy handholding), which is really, really difficult. But damn these years have been a major disappointment on that front.
I 100% disagree. I love BotW because it is the antithesis to modern open world game design, which usually means a place littered with collectibles to check off an imaginary list. Yes, there *are* 800 or so korok seeds, but it took the community to even realize that afair - they're there if you want them, but you only really need a fraction of those for gameplay reasons. The rest are there if you want/enjoy them.
Having way too many korok seeds also means you don't need to spend hours following a walkthrough hunting down that very last one to get the last upgrade. They're everywhere if you just throw a few rocks around or dig up a suspicious circle of flowers. You'll get all the upgrades you need pretty organically as you progress, and then they're just neat little guys that you can deal with if you feel like it.
Like farming for materials. You don't need to, because the base costumes can do everything you absolutely need, but if you want to... hoo boy that's a rabbit hole.
Yeah. You explore the world as it is, and if something looks funny, it might contain a korok! If anything, it gets you to engage with the world *as is*, instead of basically having your eyes glued to the minimap to beeline for the collectible icon
I 100% disagree. I love BotW because it is the antithesis to modern open world game design, which usually means a place littered with collectibles to check off an imaginary list. Yes, there *are* 800 or so korok seeds, but it took the community to even realize that afair - they're there if you want them, but you only really need a fraction of those for gameplay reasons. The rest are there if you want/enjoy them.
Having way too many korok seeds also means you don't need to spend hours following a walkthrough hunting down that very last one to get the last upgrade. They're everywhere if you just throw a few rocks around or dig up a suspicious circle of flowers. You'll get all the upgrades you need pretty organically as you progress, and then they're just neat little guys that you can deal with if you feel like it.
Like farming for materials. You don't need to, because the base costumes can do everything you absolutely need, but if you want to... hoo boy that's a rabbit hole.
Ironically, when I played Elden Ring, the simplicity of BotW's Spirit Orbs made more sense. Elden Ring is an open world game until you start seeking specific items, especially the Somber Stone Ball Bearings. The Ball Bearings, among items specific for your build, become a "bottle neck" that requires you to go to that one dungeon to get that one thing. A player who knows what they're doing for a a Mage Build knows, or clings to a guide to, those bullshit powerful items for a starting build.
The Spirit Orbs on the other hand, are dual purpose (HP and Stamina,) and are absolutely critical for everyone who is not a speed runner and are spread out far and wide. This means that progress in BotW has less "correct answers."
How such a system would look like in Souls, I do not know. Maybe each "dungeon" could have a "thing" that adds items to shopping and smithing.
I 100% disagree. I love BotW because it is the antithesis to modern open world game design, which usually means a place littered with collectibles to check off an imaginary list. Yes, there *are* 800 or so korok seeds, but it took the community to even realize that afair - they're there if you want them, but you only really need a fraction of those for gameplay reasons. The rest are there if you want/enjoy them.
Having way too many korok seeds also means you don't need to spend hours following a walkthrough hunting down that very last one to get the last upgrade. They're everywhere if you just throw a few rocks around or dig up a suspicious circle of flowers. You'll get all the upgrades you need pretty organically as you progress, and then they're just neat little guys that you can deal with if you feel like it.
Like farming for materials. You don't need to, because the base costumes can do everything you absolutely need, but if you want to... hoo boy that's a rabbit hole.
Ironically, when I played Elden Ring, the simplicity of BotW's Spirit Orbs made more sense. Elden Ring is an open world game until you start seeking specific items, especially the Somber Stone Ball Bearings. The Ball Bearings, among items specific for your build, become a "bottle neck" that requires you to go to that one dungeon to get that one thing. A player who knows what they're doing for a a Mage Build knows, or clings to a guide to, those bullshit powerful items for a starting build.
The Spirit Orbs on the other hand, are dual purpose (HP and Stamina,) and are absolutely critical for everyone who is not a speed runner and are spread out far and wide. This means that progress in BotW has less "correct answers."
How such a system would look like in Souls, I do not know. Maybe each "dungeon" could have a "thing" that adds items to shopping and smithing.
I think I'd have a mix of embers. Some embers stack and just let you upgrade gear higher. And then there's embers that unlock new upgrade branches, maybe like 2 each, and they overlap so there's a couple different sources for each weapon type. And of course upgrades for the flask - in pieces though to spread out better. So some random dungeon might give 1/4 shards for an estus flask and let you upgrade weapons another level. Some other one has the ember for Fire and I dunno Sharp upgrades. The third has Sharp and Magic ember, etc.
I don't think Breath of the Wild's world is rewarding at all because there is a literal lack of reward for exploring it. Was it beautiful? Sure. Did I walk places just to "see" what was over there? Sure. Was I consistently let down by the realization that I was never going to find anything to augment my abilities or a new power or anything that made me feel like I've uncovered some kind of awesome secret thing? Absolutely.
The thought of playing Breath of the Wild a second time just makes me want to vomit and I think it's one of the prime examples of how *not* to do an open world if you want the game to be more than a glorified walking simulator.
Now I'm not saying it isn't a totally fun and ridiculous playground for the ability set they give you, but they give you all of them right at the start and outside of the 4 cooldowns you get from the four dungeons that's all she wrote.
Considering one of my favorite things about BotW is how much you are rewarded for exploring it, this is weird to read. Are you just discounting the shrines, korok seeds, great fairies, weapon spawn points, materials, etc? Or are they just not the type of reward you want? I get that people might not consider them very interesting, but they are definitely rewards, and you get noticeably stronger for having gathered them. I mean I'm not even including the divine beasts and the master sword, all of which you have to wander around and find.
Yes I'm discounting Shrines.
What's over here? Oh another shrine.
What's inside the Shrine? Oh, another orb.
Is this a unique weapon? No, it's more generic breakable nonsense like the rest.
Finding armors to play dress up was about the only thing the game had that felt worthwhile to find.
There some YouTube commentaries about how Western open world game studios got salty because Elden Ring and Breath of the Wild are a threat to their cookie cutter collect-a-thons.
Breath of the Wild is also a collect-a-thon. Hundreds of Orbs and Korok Seeds with little to no returning value individually but only rewards based on X quantities.
I'd also argue that Elden Ring is absolutely a collect-a-thon in its own right, but it's one where you actually *want* to go out and find all of the various weapons, armors, spells, and rings to collect.
What confused the Ubisofts of open world design is how hands off both of these games are. They didn't care if you saw their worlds or not. The player was free to do whatever they wanted to do.
Ok, so when you say 'there is a literal lack of reward for exploring it' what you meant was 'I didn't like the rewards for exploring it'. It's fine to dislike the game but please don't just make up wrong facts about the game because you didn't like it.
What am I making up?
The map is littered with hundreds of shrines and seeds and the shrines are most likely just going to be "another orb". I did all the shrines, I ran across the whole of the map from one end to another and outside of the one "oh wow" moment I had where I found the shield, it did not feel very rewarding beyond seeing the vistas themselves.
For the size of the world it had, it is lacking in stuff to find.
+1
joshgotroDeviled EggThe Land of REAL CHILIRegistered Userregular
I’m not a big fan of open worlds in games. I like the freedom, but they often drag in for far too long. BotW was no different. One thing I would have liked would be for the shrines to be fewer but bigger. Often times, a shrine was just a room or a puzzle and then it’s done. If you connected 6-8 together, they would have more of a mini-dungeon feel. At the end, you put a chest that just explodes 6-8 pieces of loot.
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I was mostly fine with the incremental rewards system of Spirit Orbs and Korok Seeds, and the occasional interesting weapon or clothing. It actually made me walk around more on foot just in case I came across something interesting. I feel like having so many shrines to seek out actually went really well with the open world approach the developers had. Like, you know how there are those puzzle caves in Link to the Past (and other Zelda games), where your reward is something like a heart piece, right? Sometimes the puzzle is in extracting the reward, sometimes it's about accessing the cave in the first place. The shrines in Breath of the Wild are just like that, only about an order of magnitude more numerous due to the vastly larger size of the world.
My gut tells me that mini-dungeons with bundles of minor rewards wouldn't work as well as the BoTW shrine approach. The world kind of needs a lot of minor rewards scattered around in order to fuel its encouragement for exploration. I can understand how it could be grating to have so many minor rewards and not many permanent upgrades. The Divine Beast rewards was one step towards that, but only Revali's Gale really had a major shift in how you navigated the world. It'd be nice if there were more permanent upgrades (such as a Hookshot) that could fit into a hybrid open world design. Dungeons and mini-dungeons will need to give out permanent boons to make them special. But even with such attractions, I think that incremental-reward shrines and Koroks are still going to be quite prevalent to fill the world out.
Although, Breath of the Wild was the first open world game that I had ever played, so that might be coloring my opinions a bit. Haven't really played many open world games since then, now that I think about it. Though I did recently play through The Pathless, which has a very Korok Seed kind of environmental puzzle solving-reward system. (And it sounds like I'll need to find a way to play Elden Ring at some point too.)
I don't think Breath of the Wild's world is rewarding at all because there is a literal lack of reward for exploring it. Was it beautiful? Sure. Did I walk places just to "see" what was over there? Sure. Was I consistently let down by the realization that I was never going to find anything to augment my abilities or a new power or anything that made me feel like I've uncovered some kind of awesome secret thing? Absolutely.
The thought of playing Breath of the Wild a second time just makes me want to vomit and I think it's one of the prime examples of how *not* to do an open world if you want the game to be more than a glorified walking simulator.
Now I'm not saying it isn't a totally fun and ridiculous playground for the ability set they give you, but they give you all of them right at the start and outside of the 4 cooldowns you get from the four dungeons that's all she wrote.
Considering one of my favorite things about BotW is how much you are rewarded for exploring it, this is weird to read. Are you just discounting the shrines, korok seeds, great fairies, weapon spawn points, materials, etc? Or are they just not the type of reward you want? I get that people might not consider them very interesting, but they are definitely rewards, and you get noticeably stronger for having gathered them. I mean I'm not even including the divine beasts and the master sword, all of which you have to wander around and find.
Yes I'm discounting Shrines.
What's over here? Oh another shrine.
What's inside the Shrine? Oh, another orb.
Is this a unique weapon? No, it's more generic breakable nonsense like the rest.
Finding armors to play dress up was about the only thing the game had that felt worthwhile to find.
There some YouTube commentaries about how Western open world game studios got salty because Elden Ring and Breath of the Wild are a threat to their cookie cutter collect-a-thons.
Breath of the Wild is also a collect-a-thon. Hundreds of Orbs and Korok Seeds with little to no returning value individually but only rewards based on X quantities.
I'd also argue that Elden Ring is absolutely a collect-a-thon in its own right, but it's one where you actually *want* to go out and find all of the various weapons, armors, spells, and rings to collect.
What confused the Ubisofts of open world design is how hands off both of these games are. They didn't care if you saw their worlds or not. The player was free to do whatever they wanted to do.
Ok, so when you say 'there is a literal lack of reward for exploring it' what you meant was 'I didn't like the rewards for exploring it'. It's fine to dislike the game but please don't just make up wrong facts about the game because you didn't like it.
What am I making up?
The map is littered with hundreds of shrines and seeds and the shrines are most likely just going to be "another orb". I did all the shrines, I ran across the whole of the map from one end to another and outside of the one "oh wow" moment I had where I found the shield, it did not feel very rewarding beyond seeing the vistas themselves.
For the size of the world it had, it is lacking in stuff to find.
I quoted you verbatim there. You didn't say 'the rewards are not fulfilling' you said 'there is a literal lack of a reward', which is provably false, as people have done in this thread. If you're still having trouble, I suggest you look up what the word literal means.
yeah i'm trying to parse that out, the orbs = more hearts and/or stamina. the seeds = more bag space. those are the rewards. maybe you feel those aren't worthwhile but they aren't nothing. sometimes those shrines also had weapons or other items/money. qualitative taste is fine, but quantifiably there are rewards for doing those things.
At the same time, I felt it was the exploration and puzzle solving that were the primary reward. The growing sense that you shared an understanding of the world with the developers as you grasped the subtle things that indicated ‘hey, something weird over here.’
It was honestly the closest feeling I’ve had to what Miyamoto has expressed about the original driving idea behind Zelda - a kid discovering secrets in their environment.
That they accomplished that feeling without locking you into a set path was the miracle to me.
I found exploring the world in BOTW rewarding enough just finding cool areas and new shrines. BUT, all the shrines being the same exact motif, and giving you the exact same reward every time was lame as fuck. I hope they find a way to mix up the shrines better and give better rewards in TOTK. If it's just literally more of the same, I'll be very disappointed.
I think BOTW had plenty of unique things and secrets to find, but I do think, just as an example, the labyrinths were a missed opportunity to have a cool, unique reward of some sort. I remember seeing the first labyrinth off the coast of Akkala, thinking "What is THAT???" and then I spent like an hour navigating it, poking into all the nooks and crannies, only to be like "Oh, cool - a Great Flamesword. Already got one, but cool."
I remember seeing the first labyrinth off the coast of Akkala, thinking "What is THAT???" and then I spent like an hour navigating it, poking into all the nooks and crannies, only to be like "Oh, cool - a Great Flamesword. Already got one, but cool."
Eh...there are two solid rewards there (three if you bought the DLC). One is the shrine reward, the other two are accessible once you've left that shrine and drop down:
The Barbarian Helm (has Attack Up) is from the shrine itself. If you drop down after leaving the shrine you can also find the Diamond Circlet which has Guardian Resist like the Ancient Armor set, as well as a little jump scare when multiple decayed guardians activate at the same time and target you. If you're feeling brave and want to feel like a badass it's possible to reflect all the lasers at the same time but the timing is tight.
With the DLC you'll also find the Travel Medallion in the same area as the Diamond Circlet. It lets you place a symbol on the ground that you can fast travel to.
The other labyrinths have the rest of the Barbarian set.
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Ah, that's right - I forgot about the Barbarian armor and the circlet. Those are pretty decent rewards actually. For some reason I thought the entire Barbarian armor set was in one of the other labyrinths, which would still be a pretty good reward. And that jump scare is one of the best AHHH FUCK moments in the whole game. Welp, I'm wrong. BOTW is great.
I found exploring the world in BOTW rewarding enough just finding cool areas and new shrines. BUT, all the shrines being the same exact motif, and giving you the exact same reward every time was lame as fuck. I hope they find a way to mix up the shrines better and give better rewards in TOTK. If it's just literally more of the same, I'll be very disappointed.
And also better dungeons.
And no durability.
And make climbing faster.
And a recipe book.
And the ability to cook/craft multiple things at a time.
Streamline the shit out of your massive fucking game.
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Breath of the Wild rules and if Nintendo decided to backtrack because of a vocal minority who wanted Zelda to be the same forever it would be a tragedy and games would be worse off for it.
I really think this entire forum's tendency to decry everything they don't like as incorrect, bad design, or a fucking cosmic crime against humanity is the goddamned worst.
There are rewards, things to find and do, etc. The game's structure is supported in every aspect of its design; exploration fuels player character growth, world and mechanical knowledge, and is even the source of keeping the player's inventory packed full of resources, weaponry and otherwise. This isn't arguable. Whether or not it is your jam is where the good meat of nerd talk lies, and will vary from person to person.
Breath of the Wild rules and if Nintendo decided to backtrack because of a vocal minority who wanted Zelda to be the same forever it would be a tragedy and games would be worse off for it.
Eh. There are things BOTW does better than previous Zelda games, and things that it does worse. There would be nothing wrong with taking a step back in some areas while still trying to move forward in others.
So the labyrinths do actually have some unique rewards, which Barrakketh helpfully pointed out, but I do still sympathize with the feeling that many of the treasures start to feel less special over the course of the game. The first time you find a Great Flamesword is very cool, the 20th time you find one you might not even bother picking it up. The first time you score a dragon fang or catch a star fragment feels special, when you're spamming campfires at the dragon spawn point to grind out 15 fangs the magic and wonder are gone. Of course you don't have to play that way or do any of that stuff if you don't want to, you're well into optional end-game content territory at that point. I guess I'm just saying I can understand if someone wanted more unique treasures or rewards hidden throughout the world. It could be frustrating to explore some random cave in Hebra, spend a long ass time scaling a cliff face to get to a treasure chest, and it's an opal or a weapon you don't even want. But to be fair there are plenty of other moments where you go exploring in some random corner and you stumble upon a unique encounter like the horse god or the snowboarding shack. It's far more sandboxy than previous Zelda games and that's not for everyone, you do gain some new abilities and upgrades as you explore but nothing as dramatic as getting the hookshot which completely changes which parts of the map you can get to.
I know I said from the hype trailer for BotW I thought Link was going to be from the Gerudo tribe instead of Gannon as they hyped up the horse
So it would have been neat to have that kind of twist to the story where they swapped places
It is a fevered dream to have a Zelda maker but only the top down view point games but would they only let you do dungeons or? and how would it flag the dungeon if it needed something like the hookshot to complete and was accessible in a way?
Breath of the Wild rules and if Nintendo decided to backtrack because of a vocal minority who wanted Zelda to be the same forever it would be a tragedy and games would be worse off for it.
Eh. There are things BOTW does better than previous Zelda games, and things that it does worse. There would be nothing wrong with taking a step back in some areas while still trying to move forward in others.
This is where I disagree. What areas should they compromise? Any parts of the game that certain people want reverted or revamped were changed with intent, and are part of the holistic design. I reject the idea that there is inherent value in regression. There needs to be a reason to step backwards beyond just "people liked it before".
Breath of the Wild rules and if Nintendo decided to backtrack because of a vocal minority who wanted Zelda to be the same forever it would be a tragedy and games would be worse off for it.
Eh. There are things BOTW does better than previous Zelda games, and things that it does worse. There would be nothing wrong with taking a step back in some areas while still trying to move forward in others.
This is where I disagree. What areas should they compromise? Any parts of the game that certain people want reverted or revamped were changed with intent, and are part of the holistic design. I reject the idea that there is inherent value in regression. There needs to be a reason to step backwards beyond just "people liked it before".
Make dungeons more interesting, rewards more variable and interesting. I think that'd do a lot.
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Breath of the Wild rules and if Nintendo decided to backtrack because of a vocal minority who wanted Zelda to be the same forever it would be a tragedy and games would be worse off for it.
Eh. There are things BOTW does better than previous Zelda games, and things that it does worse. There would be nothing wrong with taking a step back in some areas while still trying to move forward in others.
This is where I disagree. What areas should they compromise? Any parts of the game that certain people want reverted or revamped were changed with intent, and are part of the holistic design. I reject the idea that there is inherent value in regression. There needs to be a reason to step backwards beyond just "people liked it before".
Make dungeons more interesting, rewards more variable and interesting. I think that'd do a lot.
Define interesting. The rewards are already varied. This has been discussed.
Breath of the Wild rules and if Nintendo decided to backtrack because of a vocal minority who wanted Zelda to be the same forever it would be a tragedy and games would be worse off for it.
Eh. There are things BOTW does better than previous Zelda games, and things that it does worse. There would be nothing wrong with taking a step back in some areas while still trying to move forward in others.
This is where I disagree. What areas should they compromise? Any parts of the game that certain people want reverted or revamped were changed with intent, and are part of the holistic design. I reject the idea that there is inherent value in regression. There needs to be a reason to step backwards beyond just "people liked it before".
Well for one thing, not giving you every tool you'll get in the game in the opening hour would make for a much better sense of progression. Now I'm not saying the game needs to go back to 8 dungeons and 8 items you get in those dungeons, but maybe just don't give you everything in that first hour.
You seem to be coming at this that ANY criticism of BOTW is being made in bad faith, and I assure you that is not true. People are allowed to criticize things, even and especially if they like it. Something isn't inherently good just because it's "holistically designed".
Breath of the Wild rules and if Nintendo decided to backtrack because of a vocal minority who wanted Zelda to be the same forever it would be a tragedy and games would be worse off for it.
Eh. There are things BOTW does better than previous Zelda games, and things that it does worse. There would be nothing wrong with taking a step back in some areas while still trying to move forward in others.
This is where I disagree. What areas should they compromise? Any parts of the game that certain people want reverted or revamped were changed with intent, and are part of the holistic design. I reject the idea that there is inherent value in regression. There needs to be a reason to step backwards beyond just "people liked it before".
Make dungeons more interesting, rewards more variable and interesting. I think that'd do a lot.
Define interesting. The rewards are already varied. This has been discussed.
Breath of the Wild rules and if Nintendo decided to backtrack because of a vocal minority who wanted Zelda to be the same forever it would be a tragedy and games would be worse off for it.
Eh. There are things BOTW does better than previous Zelda games, and things that it does worse. There would be nothing wrong with taking a step back in some areas while still trying to move forward in others.
This is where I disagree. What areas should they compromise? Any parts of the game that certain people want reverted or revamped were changed with intent, and are part of the holistic design. I reject the idea that there is inherent value in regression. There needs to be a reason to step backwards beyond just "people liked it before".
Make dungeons more interesting, rewards more variable and interesting. I think that'd do a lot.
Define interesting. The rewards are already varied. This has been discussed.
You believing something doesn't make the discussion closed. This tone is beyond annoying. An open world go wherever you want design is not inherently better than a linear story. For one thing, the linear story has like... story to it. Not just "Link climbed a wall then did a puzzle shrine then... also did that again. For 50 more hours."
Breath of the Wild rules and if Nintendo decided to backtrack because of a vocal minority who wanted Zelda to be the same forever it would be a tragedy and games would be worse off for it.
Eh. There are things BOTW does better than previous Zelda games, and things that it does worse. There would be nothing wrong with taking a step back in some areas while still trying to move forward in others.
This is where I disagree. What areas should they compromise? Any parts of the game that certain people want reverted or revamped were changed with intent, and are part of the holistic design. I reject the idea that there is inherent value in regression. There needs to be a reason to step backwards beyond just "people liked it before".
Well for one thing, not giving you every tool you'll get in the game in the opening hour would make for a much better sense of progression. Now I'm not saying the game needs to go back to 8 dungeons and 8 items you get in those dungeons, but maybe just don't give you everything in that first hour.
You seem to be coming at this that ANY criticism of BOTW is being made in bad faith, and I assure you that is not true. People are allowed to criticize things, even and especially if they like it. Something isn't inherently good just because it's "holistically designed".
I don't take issue with opinions.
I take issue with the stance that a creator should consider regression in their direct sequel, at the expense of the intentional moves they made to separate and individualize the original work, because of tradition.
I also take issue with the inability to separate quality of a work from personal preference.
I also take issue with the concept of "oh just rip this old design element from a work and slot it into the new work, it won't effect anything". This is what I mean by "holistic". The different parts of BotW inform each other and work together. Changing a piece of that system back to the old way, without consideration of any mechanical supportive reasoning will have knock-on effects throughout the entire thing.
Breath of the Wild rules and if Nintendo decided to backtrack because of a vocal minority who wanted Zelda to be the same forever it would be a tragedy and games would be worse off for it.
Eh. There are things BOTW does better than previous Zelda games, and things that it does worse. There would be nothing wrong with taking a step back in some areas while still trying to move forward in others.
This is where I disagree. What areas should they compromise? Any parts of the game that certain people want reverted or revamped were changed with intent, and are part of the holistic design. I reject the idea that there is inherent value in regression. There needs to be a reason to step backwards beyond just "people liked it before".
Make dungeons more interesting, rewards more variable and interesting. I think that'd do a lot.
Define interesting. The rewards are already varied. This has been discussed.
I dunno, something besides "brown concrete"?
True! While the consistent visual design of Sheikah construction does convey a sense of "this is ancient tech, beware", I think a good amount of visual variety within the beasts would go a long way.
The problem with most criticisms of Breath of the Wild is that they usually don't take into account the main goal and purpose of the game, which is pretty different than most Zelda games. That sense of exploration and discovery, of defining your own path through the game, is the single most crucial aspect. So yeah, the unique abilities are going to be frontloaded - this isn't a flaw. It's just a different style. Getting to a shrine or beast and not being able to use it because you don't have the ability, that's the game telling you that you played it the wrong way - which they are avoiding at all costs. Or alternately, if you don't find an ability until the very end of the game, or never - you missed out on a big chunk of the game without realizing it. Besides which, the BotW abilities are a lot more flexible in their usage than a lot of normal Zelda items. You are going to be finding new uses for them the whole game. The rewards you find are incremental because exploration is largely incremental. The big rewards are in the beasts, the hidden forest, and the fairies.
Weapon durability is there to add the 'survival' aspect so you have a reason to wander around picking up weapons instead of just using a single one the whole game. The beasts aren't very big because they are not the main focus of the game, and anyway getting to them, and getting inside them, is a large part of their design anyway. Climbing is slow because it's universal, and to make getting stamina from a shrine worth it, and also to make finding walking paths seem attractive.
The thing is that just about every criticism I've heard someone make of the game, is of something that I view as its strength. To me this speaks more to someone either not getting what the game is about, or just not being into that style of game. Which is totally fine, god knows there's plenty of popular games I'm not into at all. But these things are not flaws.
When I was considering possibilities for unlockable abilities and progression items, I realized something: given how huge BotW's map is, it would be intensely frustrating to come across a world element that you can't interact with yet. Don't have the bombs yet? Too bad, you can't do anything with that cracked wall. Hopefully you don't run out of map markers before you find the bombs, or can otherwise remember which twenty spots on the map you saw a good spot for a bomb! Same for any other gating mechanic I could think of. I think it's a core strength of BotW that, aside from combat stats, nothing locks you out of anything you may discover, only your knowledge of what's required of you. For this specific scope of game, it's better to avoid forcing backtracking, I feel.
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Yes I'm discounting Shrines.
What's over here? Oh another shrine.
What's inside the Shrine? Oh, another orb.
Is this a unique weapon? No, it's more generic breakable nonsense like the rest.
Finding armors to play dress up was about the only thing the game had that felt worthwhile to find.
Breath of the Wild is also a collect-a-thon. Hundreds of Orbs and Korok Seeds with little to no returning value individually but only rewards based on X quantities.
I'd also argue that Elden Ring is absolutely a collect-a-thon in its own right, but it's one where you actually *want* to go out and find all of the various weapons, armors, spells, and rings to collect.
What confused the Ubisofts of open world design is how hands off both of these games are. They didn't care if you saw their worlds or not. The player was free to do whatever they wanted to do.
There is just so much that players must unlearn from action games like Devil May Cry and Hyrule Warriors or whatever to enjoy a Souls that Souls games continue to fail to teach. Like that in weighty combat, every swing of a weapon or shuffle of the feet is life or death, or that button mashing is death.
But I find the exploration and world of both Elden Ring and Breath of the Wild to be the games I enjoyed for long periods of time without reaching for a wiki.
I 100% disagree. I love BotW because it is the antithesis to modern open world game design, which usually means a place littered with collectibles to check off an imaginary list. Yes, there *are* 800 or so korok seeds, but it took the community to even realize that afair - they're there if you want them, but you only really need a fraction of those for gameplay reasons. The rest are there if you want/enjoy them.
Ok, so when you say 'there is a literal lack of reward for exploring it' what you meant was 'I didn't like the rewards for exploring it'. It's fine to dislike the game but please don't just make up wrong facts about the game because you didn't like it.
As i did play the souls games with the same ideal
In BoTW I really did walk around as I had no idea what to do. But I remember liking how equipment could break but that is all I remember from my 5 hours of play
I almost wrote this exact post yesterday - the sense of excitement and freedom of exploration felt like they’d completely obviated the need for Ubisoft-collectathons or Bethesda-jankiness, and I was excited to see what came next in the open world space.
The answer was kind of nothing, then Elden Ring, and now a new Zelda.
I get that the real accomplishment was one of level design (finding a way to guide and encourage the player without relying on old and clumsy false barriers and heavy handholding), which is really, really difficult. But damn these years have been a major disappointment on that front.
Having way too many korok seeds also means you don't need to spend hours following a walkthrough hunting down that very last one to get the last upgrade. They're everywhere if you just throw a few rocks around or dig up a suspicious circle of flowers. You'll get all the upgrades you need pretty organically as you progress, and then they're just neat little guys that you can deal with if you feel like it.
Like farming for materials. You don't need to, because the base costumes can do everything you absolutely need, but if you want to... hoo boy that's a rabbit hole.
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Ironically, when I played Elden Ring, the simplicity of BotW's Spirit Orbs made more sense. Elden Ring is an open world game until you start seeking specific items, especially the Somber Stone Ball Bearings. The Ball Bearings, among items specific for your build, become a "bottle neck" that requires you to go to that one dungeon to get that one thing. A player who knows what they're doing for a a Mage Build knows, or clings to a guide to, those bullshit powerful items for a starting build.
The Spirit Orbs on the other hand, are dual purpose (HP and Stamina,) and are absolutely critical for everyone who is not a speed runner and are spread out far and wide. This means that progress in BotW has less "correct answers."
How such a system would look like in Souls, I do not know. Maybe each "dungeon" could have a "thing" that adds items to shopping and smithing.
I think I'd have a mix of embers. Some embers stack and just let you upgrade gear higher. And then there's embers that unlock new upgrade branches, maybe like 2 each, and they overlap so there's a couple different sources for each weapon type. And of course upgrades for the flask - in pieces though to spread out better. So some random dungeon might give 1/4 shards for an estus flask and let you upgrade weapons another level. Some other one has the ember for Fire and I dunno Sharp upgrades. The third has Sharp and Magic ember, etc.
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What am I making up?
The map is littered with hundreds of shrines and seeds and the shrines are most likely just going to be "another orb". I did all the shrines, I ran across the whole of the map from one end to another and outside of the one "oh wow" moment I had where I found the shield, it did not feel very rewarding beyond seeing the vistas themselves.
For the size of the world it had, it is lacking in stuff to find.
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My gut tells me that mini-dungeons with bundles of minor rewards wouldn't work as well as the BoTW shrine approach. The world kind of needs a lot of minor rewards scattered around in order to fuel its encouragement for exploration. I can understand how it could be grating to have so many minor rewards and not many permanent upgrades. The Divine Beast rewards was one step towards that, but only Revali's Gale really had a major shift in how you navigated the world. It'd be nice if there were more permanent upgrades (such as a Hookshot) that could fit into a hybrid open world design. Dungeons and mini-dungeons will need to give out permanent boons to make them special. But even with such attractions, I think that incremental-reward shrines and Koroks are still going to be quite prevalent to fill the world out.
Although, Breath of the Wild was the first open world game that I had ever played, so that might be coloring my opinions a bit. Haven't really played many open world games since then, now that I think about it. Though I did recently play through The Pathless, which has a very Korok Seed kind of environmental puzzle solving-reward system. (And it sounds like I'll need to find a way to play Elden Ring at some point too.)
I might be wrong in that estimation, maybe it's just a matter of how much I do versus how much there is to be done instead, but still.
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I quoted you verbatim there. You didn't say 'the rewards are not fulfilling' you said 'there is a literal lack of a reward', which is provably false, as people have done in this thread. If you're still having trouble, I suggest you look up what the word literal means.
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It was honestly the closest feeling I’ve had to what Miyamoto has expressed about the original driving idea behind Zelda - a kid discovering secrets in their environment.
That they accomplished that feeling without locking you into a set path was the miracle to me.
And also better dungeons.
And no durability.
And make climbing faster.
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With the DLC you'll also find the Travel Medallion in the same area as the Diamond Circlet. It lets you place a symbol on the ground that you can fast travel to.
The other labyrinths have the rest of the Barbarian set.
And a recipe book.
And the ability to cook/craft multiple things at a time.
Streamline the shit out of your massive fucking game.
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I really think this entire forum's tendency to decry everything they don't like as incorrect, bad design, or a fucking cosmic crime against humanity is the goddamned worst.
There are rewards, things to find and do, etc. The game's structure is supported in every aspect of its design; exploration fuels player character growth, world and mechanical knowledge, and is even the source of keeping the player's inventory packed full of resources, weaponry and otherwise. This isn't arguable. Whether or not it is your jam is where the good meat of nerd talk lies, and will vary from person to person.
Eh. There are things BOTW does better than previous Zelda games, and things that it does worse. There would be nothing wrong with taking a step back in some areas while still trying to move forward in others.
So it would have been neat to have that kind of twist to the story where they swapped places
It is a fevered dream to have a Zelda maker but only the top down view point games but would they only let you do dungeons or? and how would it flag the dungeon if it needed something like the hookshot to complete and was accessible in a way?
This is where I disagree. What areas should they compromise? Any parts of the game that certain people want reverted or revamped were changed with intent, and are part of the holistic design. I reject the idea that there is inherent value in regression. There needs to be a reason to step backwards beyond just "people liked it before".
Make dungeons more interesting, rewards more variable and interesting. I think that'd do a lot.
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Define interesting. The rewards are already varied. This has been discussed.
Well for one thing, not giving you every tool you'll get in the game in the opening hour would make for a much better sense of progression. Now I'm not saying the game needs to go back to 8 dungeons and 8 items you get in those dungeons, but maybe just don't give you everything in that first hour.
You seem to be coming at this that ANY criticism of BOTW is being made in bad faith, and I assure you that is not true. People are allowed to criticize things, even and especially if they like it. Something isn't inherently good just because it's "holistically designed".
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I dunno, something besides "brown concrete"?
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You believing something doesn't make the discussion closed. This tone is beyond annoying. An open world go wherever you want design is not inherently better than a linear story. For one thing, the linear story has like... story to it. Not just "Link climbed a wall then did a puzzle shrine then... also did that again. For 50 more hours."
I don't take issue with opinions.
I take issue with the stance that a creator should consider regression in their direct sequel, at the expense of the intentional moves they made to separate and individualize the original work, because of tradition.
I also take issue with the inability to separate quality of a work from personal preference.
I also take issue with the concept of "oh just rip this old design element from a work and slot it into the new work, it won't effect anything". This is what I mean by "holistic". The different parts of BotW inform each other and work together. Changing a piece of that system back to the old way, without consideration of any mechanical supportive reasoning will have knock-on effects throughout the entire thing.
True! While the consistent visual design of Sheikah construction does convey a sense of "this is ancient tech, beware", I think a good amount of visual variety within the beasts would go a long way.
Weapon durability is there to add the 'survival' aspect so you have a reason to wander around picking up weapons instead of just using a single one the whole game. The beasts aren't very big because they are not the main focus of the game, and anyway getting to them, and getting inside them, is a large part of their design anyway. Climbing is slow because it's universal, and to make getting stamina from a shrine worth it, and also to make finding walking paths seem attractive.
The thing is that just about every criticism I've heard someone make of the game, is of something that I view as its strength. To me this speaks more to someone either not getting what the game is about, or just not being into that style of game. Which is totally fine, god knows there's plenty of popular games I'm not into at all. But these things are not flaws.