Are quest markers, compasses, minimaps, etc bad game design (and if so, why)...

What are you trying to tell me, user? I don't understand what you're saying. Have years of growing up on the internet stunted your ability to communicate with other people or are you capable of any intelligent discourse?
It's easy to label people instead of considering outside opinions.

they aren't just bad, they're an admission by the developer that their linear story game and their open world simulation game are separate entirely. They have the open world for you to marvel at and enjoy the fruits of an artist's vision, but they also have linear corridors where they have a writer's story ready for you. Your freedom is incompatible with their story, so they can only give you one at a time.

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>games have to play themselves AND you have to spoonfeed me

don't need that information. (You) need Skyrim.

That's not how you use green-text. Do you need me to show you?
Neither of those were complete thoughts. Would you like to try again?

>Your freedom is incompatible with their story
That's an unsolvable problem though, isn't it? Given realistic resources and the technology of the day, there's really no way to write a story more advanced than "kill zombies lol" that perfectly accounts for player freedom, even just in a hub world, let alone an open world.

Just following an arrow telling you exactly where to go without thinking actually damages your brain.

They're not bad design, they're band-aids for bad design.
When you create generic, boring quests that boil down to "go to x, talk to y, kill w, deliver item to z" there's little incentive for the player to waste their time absorbing the relevant information because they have already done this same shit a hundred times before. Players will then tend to skip or skim through text and find themselves lost more often, at which point the developers will attempt to remedy this frustration by making objectives clearer.
In short, you only need handholding if your game is shit and boring.

Green-text is used to quote people and reply to them, not put words in their mouth like an arrogant douchebag, just saying faggot. If you want to actually talk about video games I'm here forever.

meant for

isnt dyinglight 2 not supposed to have "missions" but the mission is the city itself?

>If you want to actually talk about video games I'm here forever.
>doesn't talk about video games
like Clockwork
not the game

>Hey dude, can you catch this bandit for me?
>Sure where is he?
>I dunno dude but he's somewhere south lmao

Yeah no fuck off, autists.

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...

>Green-text is used to quote people and reply to them, not put words in their mouth like an arrogant douchebag, just saying faggot. If you want to actually talk about video games I'm here forever.

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Alternatively you can disable quest markers as they’re added.

>cardinal directions are too hard
i bet you play on easy, fag

>you can disable quest markers
You can disable the marker, but you can't disable the game design having assumed the player would have markers. You turn the markers off, realize that no NPC gives any kind of direction, because you have a magic compass, and then you turn them back on. The compass needs to be disabled at the design stage.

Have fun when the game is built around quest markers and doesn't even bother giving you basic directions.

If you have shitty level design with sprawling maps, then yes, quest markers are acceptable to attempt to make up for the fact your game is a clusterfuck. However, if you actually intelligently designed your game's world, there is no need for them.

They are a bad idea, the only time I've seen them done right is probably Botw where you set your own markers for the most part. Actual quests have markers too but sometimes they don't tell you shit about what you're supposed to do which is good. Use your brain, explore. look at shit.

Having quest markers means you won't have to bother writing directions or making memorable and distinct areas for your map. It also makes your games accessible to gamers with low cognitive ability so your audience is bigger. It's a no brainer really.

Do you know that you can turn them off in Skyrim? Skyrim's quests have description too.

Except no fucking directions tard.

Quest markers would be fine if they gave you an area where you have to search instead of direct markers.

I don't disagree with the idea of markers, but pin-point accuracy on them like Skyrim - especially for when you're going into the unknown, is dumb. Often times these games also don't have much of an alternative. GPS-level accuracy I guess can be handwaved somewhat in a modern-day setting, but right down to tracking the items in real time can be a bit much. This is likely why some have problems finding that Dwemer puzzle box in Morrowind.

Instead, markers could start highlighting a general area for where the quest giver tells you to go in, and then have something like an optional brainstorming or intelligence-gathering step to further make the marker more accurate if NPCs or books have some clues or know where exactly it is you're going to, help describe what items you're looking for, etc. Basically some kind of 'character intelligence' backing up the system that can be more immersive. It expanded on that if your character was good at tracking and being resourceful, they could hunt down and intercept a moving character carrying a quest item easier.

Why the fuck do you need directions? Go fucking explore. Stop being lazy.

No i don't think so - despite the open world having some context within the scope of the scripted mission, there is one of two things that may happen

1) they can carrot-on-a-stick you through the open world in order to get you to a scripted corridor location or
2) put you in a corridor/arena of a large enough size that you assume it's part of the open world but in reality it's a self contained scripted area that penalizes you for leaving before it's allowed. Essentially they have to bring in all the constraints of the corridor since it's realistically the only way to do the story content.

I think that may be true, but that's the inherent problem with all these open world games. The game portion doesn't really benefit from being open world. The real open world games are good because they don't have a story, they just say: here's tools to manipulate the open world, go.

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just feel your way

>He's somewhere south, my dude
>But maybe he's up north, Im not sure lmao

So this is the top tier gameplay journalfags sing praises for

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This. Quest markers are fine but they should represent what your character actually knows.
If a quest giver tells you to go grab a thing in a certain house, it should mark the house but not the object.

>turn off the hud
>since the game gave no direction, now you can't possibly get anywhere

I think the main story quest line in Skyrim could be done without markers.

there's a popular mod for that

only because you can just follow the delphine to the important locations

So you don't have to experience the world around you but still have have to spend time combing some shithole for a puzzle box. Perfect.

No mod can redesign the entire game.

>Quest markers are fine but they should represent what your character actually knows.
Succinct, and right.

>need mod to fix game
GAME IS FINE LOOK YOU CAN TURN OFF MARKERS
yea no.
>GO EXPLORE ENTIRE MAP TO FIND KIDS DOG WHAT ARE YOU LAZY?
why waste my time on trash?

Just to use that image as an example, the compass and fast travel systems work for Skyrim because the world is boring and sucks to explore. Morrowind's landscapes and myriad of minor details that made the world feel alive made exploring actually worthwhile.

yeah but we're talking about fucking directions here

How do you deliver those directions? Hire the original voice cast? Directions require landmarks, unique locations, obvious paths, etc., and those aren't there, either. It's a lot more involved than "just mod it lol".

I agree. Like when the Greybeards tell you to get the horn of whatever this dude's name was from his grave, they obviously now exactly where his grave is as he is the founder of their order. So they can mark on your map exactly where it is like someone would in real life. But if someone tells you a bunch of bandits stole his ring and they went somewhere south into the forest it should be left open.

... in written form like in fucking Morrowind? Which is exactly what the mod is doing.

>in written form
Jesus...no thanks, you can keep it

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>kid says dog is in the forest just outside town
>bros where do I search???

Then use Clairvoyance spell to know where to go.

Right is unironically better, left is for homos who care about muh role-playing, right is for people who actually care about gameplay

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>morrowind is so much better cause it did x instead of y
>ok here's a mod that does x instead of y
>no x is shit
ok

because you don't really understand what X is, or how it interacts with the rest of the game

What if its fuck huge fucking forest? hm?
post your feet you fucking jew faggot

What sounds more realistic and practical?
>Ask someone for quest
>They mark it on your map because they know where the quest is
>You can go to the marked location on your map
Or
>Ask someone for quest
>They mention incredibly vague instructions that only make sense if you start from a specific point
>They use landmarks that are strewn about over the whole world, such as "Big rocks" or "Bridge" that make it easy to get confused with other areas
>They never use any knowledge that someone in the world would actually know, such as important locations aside from the starting location
>They refuse to even acknowledge any sort of map or measures of distance
>They refuse to use cardinal directions outside of telling you where to go from specific landmarks
>They can sometimes give you outright incorrect information
>This leads to them giving you directions that span multiple paragraphs when any reasonable person should be able to compress it into one, and your character somehow writes this all down instantly
>Even after all this, the quest giver actually knows exactly where you need to go, but is just making you go through all this song and dance

There is legitimately nothing wrong with a quest marker if the NPC knows where you're going. Someone having to give me vague directions to get to one of the most well known locations in the continent when I have a map on hand is just ridiculous and immersion breaking.
The real best thing to do would be to have some quests where the NPC doesn't know where you need to go, and therefore you need hints on where to look rather than having a marker telling you exactly where to go.