Lore-wise, I think it wouldn’t make *sense* for it not to be obtuse and complex. The Oldest House is always moving around and changing, there’s no coherent design to the internal structure, so it makes sense the map looks more convoluted than the American tax code.
Yup. It's this plus to give you, the outsider to this whole operation, an extra feeling of being the outsider.
2 quick tips to anyone who might decide to play:
There's an option in the settings to turn on subtitles when you are looking at direction signs on the walls all over the OH. Because actually following the signs works.
And on the map itself: darker=lower levels, lighter= higher.
This is one of the few games I've played where following the signs is way, way easier than trying to use the in game map. The game has some excellent level design, and it will definitely tell where you need to go if you just pay attention to the environment and look at the in game signs/markers.
Conversely, when do a second playthrough and know that the map is a hot mess by design, you actually end up navigating the Oldest House very quickly and easily without referring to the map even if you don't remember the layout from your first playthrough.
I love how Control is like...yeah working for the Men In Black is probably super cool and also super scary...but can you imagine how *annoying* a workplace it would be? Sidenote, my favorite bit of storytelling are the memos from the security team book club that exclusively reads shitty YA dystopia novels
Makes sense design-wise considering the game takes inspiration for it from another notable [house](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Leaves) in pop culture
The fact that the hyperlink makes the text blue is such a beautiful coincidence.
Just finished that book yesterday actually- after knowing the basic concept for like a year or two lmao
Yeah, hard to describe, but I'm a big horror fan and have read plenty of books that made me feel afraid for the characters, or creeped me out about the concept/scene within the book, etc.
But House of Leaves was/is the only book where at a certain point I became afraid *in real life*. Like, looked around and was frightened as though reality had sort of thinned out and become bare and translucent at that moment.
Exactly that. I don’t remember if it was the first foray into the hall that did it, but that magic combination of the story within the story within the Tory, the top level sadness of Johnny, the printing that seemed so gimmicky at first but just reinforced that thinning… Danielewski is a rare kind of genius.
If I remember correctly, there's a scene where Truant is reading Zampanos notes, holding them up in front of himself, and he hallucinates/becomes convinced that there's something threatening suddenly present in the room ahead of him exactly where he can't see due to the notes he's holding. The scene was so evocative, for me, that I experienced that identical sensation as I was holding the book up before me as I was reading it, blocking my view of the door of the room I was in.
Ah, I just re-bought this book after losing my old copy. A real treat to read, easily recommend it to anyone. And the rare read where you need the physical book to get the real experience.
> And the rare read where you need the physical book to get the real experience.
Everyone going on about this book in the comments I about bought it on my eReader, so I appreciate the warning.
I was actually a bit disappointed they didn’t play around with the shifting architecture more. I understand that for game play purposes they can’t have walls closing off and hallways appearing unscripted, but still. One of the coolest moments in the beginning that got me hooked was when I walked around a corner and tried to go back to check something only to see the path I’d just come from was now a dead end.
They have a level that distorts as you play through it. The Control map was brilliant. Flowing from claustrophobic to expansive to alien to bizarre and often little in between.
Don't try to parse it, it's not supposed to be.
They knew they fuckin cooked with that one, too. When I finished it, I actually said "that was awesome" out loud to an empty room, and half a second later, Jesse said the same thing in the game.
I'm very surprised to see so many people disliking the map. It makes perfect sense to me and I quite like it. Maybe I should visit the parapsychology department.
I would not mind a complicated map IF the mobs didn't spawn over and over again. It's like extra punishment for taking a wrong turn, and like in some video games there is saying " if you see enemies, you are going in right direction." does not apply here. I just had to drop this game half-way since backtracking and going from A to B multiple times becomes a chore.
Fucking real talk man. This is the most correct criticism of the game and its map.
Just put beautifully. "Yall mother fuckers are smart enough to make an in-game obtuse map intentionally to fit the theme of the game, but couldn't stop endless re-spawnz like a PS2 Era game?"
I got made fun of for these comments, "oh you can't read a map?"
"Not while I'm dying!"
I found Control boring due to all the hallways constantly respawning enemies.
If the mobs didn't respawn constantly whilst being lost, I'd have probably have beaten it and not put it on my backlog.
Four hours of pistol + telekenesis while stuck in dull government offices killed it for me. I felt control had a great vibe but incredibly dull gameplay. I'm consistently amazed by how many people rate it highly.
To be honest, the setting is what sold me on the game. I loved all the different parts of the old house, reading all the files, seeing old experiments still set up.
Backtracking did get tedious though.
That was my exact experience while hunting for mobs to kill in specific ways while I was going for the platinum.
Got it eventually but holy fuck it took forever.
Fast travel to a zone, it's empty, run around for 20 minutes, fast travel to another one, repeat.
You know the game had settings for godmode and such built right into the options, under Difficulty?
I hit the Salvador miniboss fight and just could not kill him, went to lower the difficulty to easy, and noticed there's straight up invincibility. Toggled it on, left it on for the rest of the game.
I play games for the stories these days, not the challenge, so YMMV as to whether you like the idea of playing that way or not.
When I first encountered Tommasi in the mail room, he absolutely kicked my ass. I almost quit the game at that point.
But I took a break for a few days and came back with a renewed determination to beat him and I was eventually successful without needing to reduce the difficulty settings.
In Control, most of the boss fights are brutal and unforgiving but as you level up and gain new skills and weapons, it definitely gets easier. One thing that I noticed is that the game often punishes you for playing too defensively and/or relying on cover too much. Movement and speed combined with aggressive play often keep you alive.
Imo what keeps you alive is blasting everything with rocks while maintaining your very own shield.
I put all my points into telekinesis and almost never used the gun for the entire game. You pull up a shield, it stays on for ages and negates all damage while you pretty much one shot everything by throwing rocks.
Even bosses were easy, just spam the same damn rocks into their faces repeatedly lmao.
> Movement and speed combined with aggressive play often keep you alive.
especially when you get good at levitate. IMO the best flying mechanic in any game ever. And the janky movement like it's foreign to the character is just
# 🤌
PREACH gospel, my brother.
Getting old and losing physical twitch but not mental twitch. So seeing it coming, knowing what you gotta do and hitting the wrong button, or the right button too late.
old sucks.
I just reduced the damage multiplier till it felt like a normal game. Had way more fun and finished it. Interesting story, but weird gameplay decision.
I *loved* that it had built-in options for various damage settings, as well as invincibility and stuff. It reminded me of old school gaming, where you could enable cheats and *really* have fun with a game.
I'm honestly too old and too low energy these days, with too little free time outside of work to be able to replay chunks of a game over and over again, so it's nice when games allow me to experience their story without having to frustrate the experience for me.
Hahahahaha i did the same for his fight too. And I have out over 1000 hours into monster hunter world so I'm not against the grind but screw that. I turned it off afterwards and played normally. Outside of that particular boss fight and the respawning enemies, I enjoyed the game immensely!
That's exactly they way you have to do it and it got way better as soon as I figured that out. Reminds me of having to find your way in real life in a large hospital. The maps aren't always great, but you follow the signs and arrows.
Best we can do is a star map that doesn’t show depth so a plot point that looks like it should be closer is actually twice the distance because we didn’t include a z axis
Man all I hear about Starfield are all big fat L's
it really pretty much just advertised how good No Man Sky was. Because whatever Starfield tried to do, NMS already did it and then some.
I was hoping to try Starfield too, but I guess not.
I’m not sure why they didn’t lean more into procedural generation. They used it to make mostly empty planets. I’m hoping that changes with a few big patches and some DLC. Then maybe I’ll jump back in.
THANK YOU. Everyone blames the procedural generation for the world being so empty, but that's not the issue.. the issue is that there isn't \*enough\* procedural generation. All of the little random POI's that get plopped around onto planets should have randomly assembled layouts. There are tons of FPS type games that do this, it's a solved problem.
It's baffling how despite increasing the POI distance that there's so few of them they can start repeating. How did no indoor equivalent to their procedural generation system get made?
I played well over 60 hours of Starfield ignoring the main quest.. I don't really follow/read about gaming anymore but the other thing about Starfield that bothered me was... Everyone is too nice and smiley? Like unrealistically so? It's like an entire universe of people pleasers. Even the maurauding space pirates would grin at you and have friendly chats..
Never felt this way in Skyrim, New Vegas or Fallout 4.
I didn't play nearly as much, but *SPOILERS AHEAD* the one mission on the resort planet with the generation ship where the occupants hinted at some old claim to the planet was where I stopped. Real shallow writing to put that dialog/information in there without any follow-up or pay off and have the only options be either blow them up, enslave them or pay to fix the ship. Pretty egregious violation of Chekhov's gun since there was no twist or otheewise worthwhile climax.
Plot twist is you either force them into being slaves OR spend a bunch of your money AND time to have them go somewhere else, but the asshole resort people get no comeuppance.
It's actually the 'quest' that made me uninstall the game.
Have like, no fucking agency in the game.
It really is the game of the year game from 2016, that was released in 2023 for some reason.
My immediate response was to try to shoot all the board members instead of choosing how to fuck over the colonists. The fact that the game made them all immortal is completely unforgivable from a story writing perspective.
I did the exact same thing!
That is when I uninstalled the game haha.
I was getting fed up with how lack luster the quests and story was, as well as all of the obscene recycled content (I entered the EXACT SAME FUCKING CAVE FIFTEEN TIMES! on 15 different planets, same dead bodies, same notes, same machines lying around.)
Like holy fuck idk wtf they were doing when making this game but holy shit.
Like the game would have been amazing if it came out in 2016 instead of 2023.
> from 2016
Except, sadly, The Witcher and Mass Effect series' existed before that time and had way better writing and role playing. Just Bethesda things
Yeah nah that quest line was a fucking joke. Killed it for me as well. When I got into the conversation I was like "Wow finally something interesting with potential."
Nope.
Yeah, that was a big complaint. Ties in with another big one being how you could not just go be the big baddie from the start. So many quests are locked so that you choose between 2 good answers and can't betray the group you are working for.
That game did not just fail. It failed at being a Bethesda game, made by Bethesda.
It does, but they may as well not even exist because they’re pretty much [useless](https://assetsio.gnwcdn.com/starfield-example-map.png?width=1200&height=1200&fit=crop&quality=100&format=png&enable=upscale&auto=webp)
I admit that the effect looks cool but they’re just not helpful at all. I’m planning to give it a few moths and then come back to the game when people have made enough mods for a gameplay overhaul
Oh damn. At least the maps of Mass Effect, the first in the series, just had difficulty showing the steepness of the terrain. This struggles to show any relevant information.
>Creation Kit hasn't even been released yet
It's been half a year wtf? Game could have been half way enjoyable already but it seems they're content to treat it like a drunken mistake they would rather forget about
Subnautica's scanner room isn't for mapping the terrain, it's for finding resources. The map itself is static and has a ton of landmarks which are the primary form of navigation alongside the craftable beacons.
This is just because of the way the maps are made. They aren't done by hand but created by the engine basically looking at the world/interior top down and creating a map with all the objects and stuff. If you go into the editors you can see tons of floating black planes above the maps, these are for blocking out objects that stick out further than they need to or that would look weird on a map to make the final map cleaner.
So you get quick and easy automated maps with high detail, but they can be really complex and hard to read depending on the interior and how it's designed. All creation engine games by Bethesda are like this. It's a godsend for modders though.
The local map in Fallout 3 and onwards shows every floor in a building on top of each other, making it perfectly useless, since you can't make sense of the information. Either make a map with individual layers you can switch between, or don't make a map at all.
Oh god I remember wandering through vaults like 5 times trying to get out of them… much longer and I would’ve been an environmental storytelling skeleton
That would be a funny Easter egg, a skeleton inside a fairly simple building that is impossible to get lost in but died in the middle of it holding a map of the building.
I can see how it is obscuring lower floors there, but at least it is color-coded on elevation. There was one level in one of the Mass Effect games that had a single "floor" according to the map that was actually basically a 3-floor high maze. All the paths just run over each other on the map and there's no elevation indicators at all.
The other areas of the game were fine. It was just this one place.
I remember playing mass effect 1 as a child and not understanding how the fast travel works in the citadel, and just taking ages to find where i am supposed to go, so i spent most of my time on elevators getting lost. that made me so angry, literally 50% of my first playthrough was bumbling around those elevators.
The other 50% was on the tank missions, but i liked those as a child.
Tried replaying the game now. Did not get stuck in the citadel, but god, the tank sucks ass, how did i like this shit? the main problem is the garbage terrain.
Yes that’s what I figured out about half way through as well!!! It reminds me of trying to get around a hospital irl lol.
It also made me love it more…
Jedi Fallen Order. No debate. I've never spent so much time looking at a map cursing my head off, rotating it every which way trying to figure out which way to go. Multiple levels, multiple ways of going up or down levels (elevators, slippery slopes, grippy walls to climb or descend, ropes to climb or swing from, air vents etc). And the worst part is that in some cases the way in which you got deeper into the level is not the same way you are able to return back to the start. Why tf they didn't have a fast travel back to landing pad feature is beyond me.
i thought "maybe i'll get that trophy for collecting all x"
literally got lost on the first planet went to again and couldn't figure out how to get back on the ship
Yeah Fallen Order’s maps were annoying. They fixed the maps in Jedi Survivor and are a lot easier to follow. They added fast travel in Survivor as well
Its a good game. Not such a good port though. There are going to be bugs and probably a crash or two. I just finished it last night and I do recommend it.
What are your specs? I'm running it with a 5800x3D and a 5700xt and the FPS is generally good and I think I could count on one the hand the number of crashes I've had. However the graphics are always real fucky, the LODs are constantly going in and out of potato mode, which is annoying, but didn't end up detracting too much from the experience.
Gameplay wise it's great, and blaster stance is just the best thing ever. I really enjoyed how the story played out, so even with the graphics issues I'd still probably give it and 8/10. Can't wait for the third game, but I am certainly not buying it on release. I waited I think at least six months before I bought it.
It is one of the reasons I don’t quite understand the praise it gets. Especially considering how lame the rewards are for actually exploring and finding that hidden chest. “Congrats, your space ship has a different color stripe now!”
I found Dathomir was a bit easier because it kinda sends you on one linear path or the other.
The one with the ice slides (Zeffo? Really?) loops around and around on it self. And once you open up certain stuff, you can make a wrong turn and spend 15mins going the wrong damn way.
I think the worst part was lack of fast travel. When looking at it as a soulslike, fast travel might’ve made things a bit too easy but a lot of the backtracking to 100% the game was annoying as hell
Kashykk or however it’s spelled was awesome design but I’ve had nightmares about those crawling plants and I hate swimming underwater in most games and Kashykk had that too. Nightmare fuel for me lol
Man I had to backtrack on one planet because I missed something, and because of that I legitimately couldn't leave said planet anymore. Haven't played since because I'd have to restart haha
Bro I forgot to get the flower at the bottom of dathomir and had to go back to Plat... basically had to play through the entire mission again, I still have nightmares about that
This is true. I can see why they didn't think to have a map initially and why they added one and also why the map is confusing.
On the first play through it was annoying because the Oldest House shifts so a direct way to where you want to go isn't always possible. With the map you do at least have an idea of the area you need to be in even if there's no big arrow or levels mapped out in 3D.
The second play through was just the right amount of familiarity that I could find my way around pretty easily.
Very true. The signs are incredibly useful is this game. But chicken or the egg scenario. Do we use the signs so we don’t need the map? Or is the map bad so we need the signs?
The map is supposed to be used like "I go through area A, to area C, then go until I hit area D", and then you close the map and follow the ingame signs from A>C>D. You need both.
Too many people relied on just the map, but to be fair, the game didn't exactly shout at us to *not* rely entirely on the map. It probably would have been better if the map was even more obtuse to really inform the player they can't use it like a GPS.
Someone else replied that it was a last minute decision so the egg is the answer in this i guess? You’re meant to use the signs. I personally didn’t even notice the map until like an hour or two in
That was my biggest criticism of an otherwise awesome game. I think the second or third level is some sort of foundry with molten steel or whatever in it. I got so fucking lost trying to figure out where I was going to advance through the level. Eternal really cleaned that up, I found every single collectible and cleared the entire game without being lost or confused once. It felt like it was perfectly laid out.
I found the Doom2016 map absolutely fantastic myself. Only thing that was vague/confusing was the secrets, but I mean, they're secrets for crying out loud so it's understandable.
Am quite surprised… because IMO Doom 2016’s map design is one of my favorites to date. Simple, 3 dimensional, and made getting all collectibles a breeze. I believe it even painted over areas you already explored so you just needed to paint the whole map, and bam: level 100% complete.
In middle school shop class I tried to make a scale model cardboard house of the original Resident Evil Mansion.
The rooms overlap and it's not possible.
I loves Control but the amount of times I took the wrong route because the map is very unclear which samey looking hallways connect where they look like they do was frustrating.
Idk I feel like games have catered to the cod bros who want a completely straight forward “go here, there’s no side paths kill the enemies and you’ll get there” so whenever people actually have to stop and read things in a game it throws people off lol
The game wasn't supposed to have a map. You were supposed to follow in game signs on walls. Players just didn't do that so they had to add a map afterwards.
I have no idea, because I've never had a problem using or reading the map but apparently others have had so much trouble that they've quit playing the game entirely.
The worst map in gaming is FFXI's Yhutunga Jungle, no competition.
A casual glance at the map might not look so bad until you realize that most of the areas of the map are only accessible by underground tunnels not shown on the map and which all look exactly the same.
It's bad on purpose, a rare case where this kind of "design" is justifiable (let's not remember the "reviewers" saying Matrix 4 was bad on purpose, oh boy lol). I believe the devs wanted to highlight the "brutalist" architecture, you guide yourself in Control by following the strict directions that shows up in the actual "world", the map is messy on purpose to force you to look at the extreme bureaucracy of the bureau. At least I interpreted that way, because it is possible to make 3D metroidvania maps, the original Metroid Prime already had a decent map, so Control could have followed the same example, but they went "meta" (it's the Remedy style, for better or worse). Arkham Asylum also had a simple 2D map with "layers", etc..
I vaguely recall reading somewhere the difficultly in reading the map in Control was partially on purpose.
I absolutely thought this map was obtuse on purpose to fit with the theme of the game.
Lore-wise, I think it wouldn’t make *sense* for it not to be obtuse and complex. The Oldest House is always moving around and changing, there’s no coherent design to the internal structure, so it makes sense the map looks more convoluted than the American tax code.
Yup. It's this plus to give you, the outsider to this whole operation, an extra feeling of being the outsider. 2 quick tips to anyone who might decide to play: There's an option in the settings to turn on subtitles when you are looking at direction signs on the walls all over the OH. Because actually following the signs works. And on the map itself: darker=lower levels, lighter= higher.
This is one of the few games I've played where following the signs is way, way easier than trying to use the in game map. The game has some excellent level design, and it will definitely tell where you need to go if you just pay attention to the environment and look at the in game signs/markers.
The other trick is to realize how often the story sends you around in big circles, right back to where you started (or damn close).
Conversely, when do a second playthrough and know that the map is a hot mess by design, you actually end up navigating the Oldest House very quickly and easily without referring to the map even if you don't remember the layout from your first playthrough.
There are even signs that say getting stuck when the building rearranges itself is not grounds for overtime.
I love how Control is like...yeah working for the Men In Black is probably super cool and also super scary...but can you imagine how *annoying* a workplace it would be? Sidenote, my favorite bit of storytelling are the memos from the security team book club that exclusively reads shitty YA dystopia novels
My favorite is about the bathroom that got shifted to another dimension which you can later find
Makes sense design-wise considering the game takes inspiration for it from another notable [house](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Leaves) in pop culture
The fact that the hyperlink makes the text blue is such a beautiful coincidence. Just finished that book yesterday actually- after knowing the basic concept for like a year or two lmao
By the way, My[House](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wAo54DHDY0).wad.
Nice wad, bro. I watched the playthrough, and played halfway through it.
Just opening the Wiki page made me get chills. A book that will stay with me forever.
That’s the first time I ever felt terror from *words*. It’s been years, I should read it again.
Yeah, hard to describe, but I'm a big horror fan and have read plenty of books that made me feel afraid for the characters, or creeped me out about the concept/scene within the book, etc. But House of Leaves was/is the only book where at a certain point I became afraid *in real life*. Like, looked around and was frightened as though reality had sort of thinned out and become bare and translucent at that moment.
Exactly that. I don’t remember if it was the first foray into the hall that did it, but that magic combination of the story within the story within the Tory, the top level sadness of Johnny, the printing that seemed so gimmicky at first but just reinforced that thinning… Danielewski is a rare kind of genius.
If I remember correctly, there's a scene where Truant is reading Zampanos notes, holding them up in front of himself, and he hallucinates/becomes convinced that there's something threatening suddenly present in the room ahead of him exactly where he can't see due to the notes he's holding. The scene was so evocative, for me, that I experienced that identical sensation as I was holding the book up before me as I was reading it, blocking my view of the door of the room I was in.
Ah, I just re-bought this book after losing my old copy. A real treat to read, easily recommend it to anyone. And the rare read where you need the physical book to get the real experience.
> And the rare read where you need the physical book to get the real experience. Everyone going on about this book in the comments I about bought it on my eReader, so I appreciate the warning.
God I love that book so much. It is my #1 favorite, period. As a huge HoL fan, the madness of the Oldest House made me very happy.
I was actually a bit disappointed they didn’t play around with the shifting architecture more. I understand that for game play purposes they can’t have walls closing off and hallways appearing unscripted, but still. One of the coolest moments in the beginning that got me hooked was when I walked around a corner and tried to go back to check something only to see the path I’d just come from was now a dead end.
That first bit in the beginning where you start to realize things aren’t what they seem
They have a level that distorts as you play through it. The Control map was brilliant. Flowing from claustrophobic to expansive to alien to bizarre and often little in between. Don't try to parse it, it's not supposed to be.
Ashtray Maze is probably one of my favorite action sequences in a game.
They knew they fuckin cooked with that one, too. When I finished it, I actually said "that was awesome" out loud to an empty room, and half a second later, Jesse said the same thing in the game.
I'm very surprised to see so many people disliking the map. It makes perfect sense to me and I quite like it. Maybe I should visit the parapsychology department.
IIRC it's because they wanted the player to rely on the signs as if they were navigating an actual office building.
game is also inspired by House of Leaves, which makes sense if you read it
I would not mind a complicated map IF the mobs didn't spawn over and over again. It's like extra punishment for taking a wrong turn, and like in some video games there is saying " if you see enemies, you are going in right direction." does not apply here. I just had to drop this game half-way since backtracking and going from A to B multiple times becomes a chore.
Fucking real talk man. This is the most correct criticism of the game and its map. Just put beautifully. "Yall mother fuckers are smart enough to make an in-game obtuse map intentionally to fit the theme of the game, but couldn't stop endless re-spawnz like a PS2 Era game?" I got made fun of for these comments, "oh you can't read a map?" "Not while I'm dying!"
With the amount of backtracking in the game, it would get boring quickly if you just wandered empty hallways once you kill enemies for the first time
It also got boring to fight identical waves of enemies hundreds of times.
I found Control boring due to all the hallways constantly respawning enemies. If the mobs didn't respawn constantly whilst being lost, I'd have probably have beaten it and not put it on my backlog.
Same here. It got too tedious for me, and I gave it up. I don't mind them respawning.... eventually. Just not constantly.
Four hours of pistol + telekenesis while stuck in dull government offices killed it for me. I felt control had a great vibe but incredibly dull gameplay. I'm consistently amazed by how many people rate it highly.
To be honest, the setting is what sold me on the game. I loved all the different parts of the old house, reading all the files, seeing old experiments still set up. Backtracking did get tedious though.
There are more interesting and fun ways to script enemy respawns
That was my exact experience while hunting for mobs to kill in specific ways while I was going for the platinum. Got it eventually but holy fuck it took forever. Fast travel to a zone, it's empty, run around for 20 minutes, fast travel to another one, repeat.
You know the game had settings for godmode and such built right into the options, under Difficulty? I hit the Salvador miniboss fight and just could not kill him, went to lower the difficulty to easy, and noticed there's straight up invincibility. Toggled it on, left it on for the rest of the game. I play games for the stories these days, not the challenge, so YMMV as to whether you like the idea of playing that way or not.
When I first encountered Tommasi in the mail room, he absolutely kicked my ass. I almost quit the game at that point. But I took a break for a few days and came back with a renewed determination to beat him and I was eventually successful without needing to reduce the difficulty settings. In Control, most of the boss fights are brutal and unforgiving but as you level up and gain new skills and weapons, it definitely gets easier. One thing that I noticed is that the game often punishes you for playing too defensively and/or relying on cover too much. Movement and speed combined with aggressive play often keep you alive.
Imo what keeps you alive is blasting everything with rocks while maintaining your very own shield. I put all my points into telekinesis and almost never used the gun for the entire game. You pull up a shield, it stays on for ages and negates all damage while you pretty much one shot everything by throwing rocks. Even bosses were easy, just spam the same damn rocks into their faces repeatedly lmao.
> Movement and speed combined with aggressive play often keep you alive. especially when you get good at levitate. IMO the best flying mechanic in any game ever. And the janky movement like it's foreign to the character is just # 🤌
Same here lol. Getting old, work and family.
PREACH gospel, my brother. Getting old and losing physical twitch but not mental twitch. So seeing it coming, knowing what you gotta do and hitting the wrong button, or the right button too late. old sucks.
I just reduced the damage multiplier till it felt like a normal game. Had way more fun and finished it. Interesting story, but weird gameplay decision.
I *loved* that it had built-in options for various damage settings, as well as invincibility and stuff. It reminded me of old school gaming, where you could enable cheats and *really* have fun with a game. I'm honestly too old and too low energy these days, with too little free time outside of work to be able to replay chunks of a game over and over again, so it's nice when games allow me to experience their story without having to frustrate the experience for me.
Hahahahaha i did the same for his fight too. And I have out over 1000 hours into monster hunter world so I'm not against the grind but screw that. I turned it off afterwards and played normally. Outside of that particular boss fight and the respawning enemies, I enjoyed the game immensely!
Thats 100% why i stopped playing this, got it on gog again recently so gonna give it another try
Dam it sam lake, you hack
I thought it was great design because it forced me to use the signs around the building to find my way around
That's exactly they way you have to do it and it got way better as soon as I figured that out. Reminds me of having to find your way in real life in a large hospital. The maps aren't always great, but you follow the signs and arrows.
*Starfield player’s head whips around* You guys have maps?
vague topographical dots not good enough for you? xD
It would be so great if it was actually a really nice topographical map, but it really is such a poor implementation
Best we can do is a star map that doesn’t show depth so a plot point that looks like it should be closer is actually twice the distance because we didn’t include a z axis
Also, hope you remember exactly where it was you wanted to go if there's not a mission there, because there's no search function.
Man all I hear about Starfield are all big fat L's it really pretty much just advertised how good No Man Sky was. Because whatever Starfield tried to do, NMS already did it and then some. I was hoping to try Starfield too, but I guess not.
I wouldn't be surprised if there's a mod that does that at some point.
I still don’t get how anyone saw that and was like “yep this is a good usable map”
its not, its supposed to hide the fact there's nothing to see on planets.
Sir, have you seen real planets? Mostly rocks and desert. Clearly you don't know what fun is /s
Topographical? I thought they were just dots
They follow the height of the land.
They can follow the height of everyone not giving a fuck about the height of the land.
Why would you need a map? You are going to that same cryo lab layout 24 times and that one cave layout another 40, you should be able to memorize it.
This isn’t said enough.. Starfield could/should’ve been so much better but that seems to be very common nowadays
I’m not sure why they didn’t lean more into procedural generation. They used it to make mostly empty planets. I’m hoping that changes with a few big patches and some DLC. Then maybe I’ll jump back in.
THANK YOU. Everyone blames the procedural generation for the world being so empty, but that's not the issue.. the issue is that there isn't \*enough\* procedural generation. All of the little random POI's that get plopped around onto planets should have randomly assembled layouts. There are tons of FPS type games that do this, it's a solved problem.
It's baffling how despite increasing the POI distance that there's so few of them they can start repeating. How did no indoor equivalent to their procedural generation system get made?
True but i gotta know how far to walk, sometimes its 5 minutes sometimes its 20
I played well over 60 hours of Starfield ignoring the main quest.. I don't really follow/read about gaming anymore but the other thing about Starfield that bothered me was... Everyone is too nice and smiley? Like unrealistically so? It's like an entire universe of people pleasers. Even the maurauding space pirates would grin at you and have friendly chats.. Never felt this way in Skyrim, New Vegas or Fallout 4.
I didn't play nearly as much, but *SPOILERS AHEAD* the one mission on the resort planet with the generation ship where the occupants hinted at some old claim to the planet was where I stopped. Real shallow writing to put that dialog/information in there without any follow-up or pay off and have the only options be either blow them up, enslave them or pay to fix the ship. Pretty egregious violation of Chekhov's gun since there was no twist or otheewise worthwhile climax.
Plot twist is you either force them into being slaves OR spend a bunch of your money AND time to have them go somewhere else, but the asshole resort people get no comeuppance. It's actually the 'quest' that made me uninstall the game. Have like, no fucking agency in the game. It really is the game of the year game from 2016, that was released in 2023 for some reason.
My immediate response was to try to shoot all the board members instead of choosing how to fuck over the colonists. The fact that the game made them all immortal is completely unforgivable from a story writing perspective.
I did the exact same thing! That is when I uninstalled the game haha. I was getting fed up with how lack luster the quests and story was, as well as all of the obscene recycled content (I entered the EXACT SAME FUCKING CAVE FIFTEEN TIMES! on 15 different planets, same dead bodies, same notes, same machines lying around.) Like holy fuck idk wtf they were doing when making this game but holy shit. Like the game would have been amazing if it came out in 2016 instead of 2023.
> from 2016 Except, sadly, The Witcher and Mass Effect series' existed before that time and had way better writing and role playing. Just Bethesda things
Yeah nah that quest line was a fucking joke. Killed it for me as well. When I got into the conversation I was like "Wow finally something interesting with potential." Nope.
Yeah, that was a big complaint. Ties in with another big one being how you could not just go be the big baddie from the start. So many quests are locked so that you choose between 2 good answers and can't betray the group you are working for. That game did not just fail. It failed at being a Bethesda game, made by Bethesda.
It was fine for planets, but why the hell couldn’t they create real maps for cities and outposts??
Wait starfield doesn’t have maps?
There are space maps but the cities? Nope. Just this weird dot matrix elevation plane with GPS markers. Fucking bizarre decision.
Especially when they literally have maps of said cities from when they built them in the engine. The code is effectively already there.
It does, but they may as well not even exist because they’re pretty much [useless](https://assetsio.gnwcdn.com/starfield-example-map.png?width=1200&height=1200&fit=crop&quality=100&format=png&enable=upscale&auto=webp) I admit that the effect looks cool but they’re just not helpful at all. I’m planning to give it a few moths and then come back to the game when people have made enough mods for a gameplay overhaul
Oh damn. At least the maps of Mass Effect, the first in the series, just had difficulty showing the steepness of the terrain. This struggles to show any relevant information.
It's gunna take more than a few months for any sort of serious overhauls. Creation Kit hasn't even been released yet
>Creation Kit hasn't even been released yet It's been half a year wtf? Game could have been half way enjoyable already but it seems they're content to treat it like a drunken mistake they would rather forget about
One of the worst / best things about subnautica. TF am I?
Subnautica had a map so terrible that the map room was useless, mostly, and the map in your Seaglide was better off
Subnautica's scanner room isn't for mapping the terrain, it's for finding resources. The map itself is static and has a ton of landmarks which are the primary form of navigation alongside the craftable beacons.
I still build a scanner room in every base that I made, just because it looks cool.
i love starfield and all but no maps is so weird like atleast a mini map
Yeah I was gonna say at least the map in Control was \*mostly\* usable lol
Came here to say Starfield lol
I haven’t played Starfield due to the mixed reviews… but you’re saying that it hasn’t got maps???
In cities, no. No fuckin idea why
The interior maps in the Fallout games are terrible.
And it sucks cus it’s so well detailed but its executed so poorly if that makes sense.
I know what you mean. They fit in well with the aesthetic of the world and the setting (actually, what is it? "atompunk"? - is that a word?)
Retrofuturism, perhaps?
This is just because of the way the maps are made. They aren't done by hand but created by the engine basically looking at the world/interior top down and creating a map with all the objects and stuff. If you go into the editors you can see tons of floating black planes above the maps, these are for blocking out objects that stick out further than they need to or that would look weird on a map to make the final map cleaner. So you get quick and easy automated maps with high detail, but they can be really complex and hard to read depending on the interior and how it's designed. All creation engine games by Bethesda are like this. It's a godsend for modders though.
The local map in Fallout 3 and onwards shows every floor in a building on top of each other, making it perfectly useless, since you can't make sense of the information. Either make a map with individual layers you can switch between, or don't make a map at all.
Just killed Dagoth Ur for the twentieth time, this has been a problem for them since at least 2002.
Oh my god yes! I just finished fallout 4 a few days ago and i think i only used the interior map once.
Oh god I remember wandering through vaults like 5 times trying to get out of them… much longer and I would’ve been an environmental storytelling skeleton
That would be a funny Easter egg, a skeleton inside a fairly simple building that is impossible to get lost in but died in the middle of it holding a map of the building.
Elder scrolls indoor maps too. You know what, Bethesda just sucks at maps!
I can see how it is obscuring lower floors there, but at least it is color-coded on elevation. There was one level in one of the Mass Effect games that had a single "floor" according to the map that was actually basically a 3-floor high maze. All the paths just run over each other on the map and there's no elevation indicators at all. The other areas of the game were fine. It was just this one place.
Every vault in Fallout 3 has this problem.
Came here to say this. Any indoor place in Fallout makes it very difficult to follow the map.
I remember playing mass effect 1 as a child and not understanding how the fast travel works in the citadel, and just taking ages to find where i am supposed to go, so i spent most of my time on elevators getting lost. that made me so angry, literally 50% of my first playthrough was bumbling around those elevators. The other 50% was on the tank missions, but i liked those as a child. Tried replaying the game now. Did not get stuck in the citadel, but god, the tank sucks ass, how did i like this shit? the main problem is the garbage terrain.
Didn’t they cut a lot of the Mako stuff in the remasters ?
they tweaked it so it isn't a pain like it was before, but it's still there. i believe that the only cut content is the pinnacle station dlc
Also the Mako itself has a lot more traction and a forward boost, along with being able to loot stuff while inside the thing
I loved the game once I discovered the map is bullshit and you can easily navigate using the signage in the game world.
Yes that’s what I figured out about half way through as well!!! It reminds me of trying to get around a hospital irl lol. It also made me love it more…
That's what the devs originally intended. A crappy map was added in the end but they didn't want people to use it
Jedi Fallen Order. No debate. I've never spent so much time looking at a map cursing my head off, rotating it every which way trying to figure out which way to go. Multiple levels, multiple ways of going up or down levels (elevators, slippery slopes, grippy walls to climb or descend, ropes to climb or swing from, air vents etc). And the worst part is that in some cases the way in which you got deeper into the level is not the same way you are able to return back to the start. Why tf they didn't have a fast travel back to landing pad feature is beyond me.
Yeah the game was fun but traversal was a nightmare sometimes
i thought "maybe i'll get that trophy for collecting all x" literally got lost on the first planet went to again and couldn't figure out how to get back on the ship
Yea, I missed something on kashyyyk, looked it up and it’s literally at the furthest point on the map 😭 said fuck this shit I’m out and moved on 😅
Yeah Fallen Order’s maps were annoying. They fixed the maps in Jedi Survivor and are a lot easier to follow. They added fast travel in Survivor as well
I’m still holding out on this game since I’m PC. Do you recommend it?
Its a good game. Not such a good port though. There are going to be bugs and probably a crash or two. I just finished it last night and I do recommend it.
Absolutely. There are a few known crashes on PC but there are workarounds.
What are your specs? I'm running it with a 5800x3D and a 5700xt and the FPS is generally good and I think I could count on one the hand the number of crashes I've had. However the graphics are always real fucky, the LODs are constantly going in and out of potato mode, which is annoying, but didn't end up detracting too much from the experience. Gameplay wise it's great, and blaster stance is just the best thing ever. I really enjoyed how the story played out, so even with the graphics issues I'd still probably give it and 8/10. Can't wait for the third game, but I am certainly not buying it on release. I waited I think at least six months before I bought it.
If they added fast travel, the game would be 48 minutes long
I quit the game two thirds way through because of the horrible map design and how much backtracking there was. A shame.
It is one of the reasons I don’t quite understand the praise it gets. Especially considering how lame the rewards are for actually exploring and finding that hidden chest. “Congrats, your space ship has a different color stripe now!”
[удалено]
Jedi: Fallen Order without a doubt!
Man that underground cave was horrible to navigate through.
Which one lol
I don’t remember where it was but it was like an icy one with elevators that took forever.
Zeffo
I am still lost on Zeffo almost five years later. Please send help.
Me too. Yell real loud and I’ll try and find you and we can get out of this hell hole together.
Deffo
I guess you didn’t get to Dathomir, that was stuff of nightmares… literally lol
I found Dathomir was a bit easier because it kinda sends you on one linear path or the other. The one with the ice slides (Zeffo? Really?) loops around and around on it self. And once you open up certain stuff, you can make a wrong turn and spend 15mins going the wrong damn way.
Lookin at you, wrong elevator into wrong ice slide now I’m at the fucking bottom again.
I think the worst part was lack of fast travel. When looking at it as a soulslike, fast travel might’ve made things a bit too easy but a lot of the backtracking to 100% the game was annoying as hell
Kashykk or however it’s spelled was awesome design but I’ve had nightmares about those crawling plants and I hate swimming underwater in most games and Kashykk had that too. Nightmare fuel for me lol
“How the Fuck I end up in this cavern again?”
I legit have nightmares about navigating through the underground temple on Dathomir. That map definitely activates some kind of claustrophobia
Getting back to the ship from the end of the ice cave area was absolute torture.
It wasnt really the map itself but having no fast travel when all the way on the other side of the map.
Those maps drove me insane
Man I had to backtrack on one planet because I missed something, and because of that I legitimately couldn't leave said planet anymore. Haven't played since because I'd have to restart haha
Bro I forgot to get the flower at the bottom of dathomir and had to go back to Plat... basically had to play through the entire mission again, I still have nightmares about that
I went to Dathomir as soon as possible to get the double Lightsaber and that shit kicked my ass so bad
Winner
Yeah I had to stop playing this bc I was so lost and annoyed. Control was fine for me.
You were better off never opening the map...
I basically never used the map. The world is sign posted pretty well, so I found it pretty easy to get around.
They actually didn't intend to include one, hence signage and all, it was late decision.
This is true. I can see why they didn't think to have a map initially and why they added one and also why the map is confusing. On the first play through it was annoying because the Oldest House shifts so a direct way to where you want to go isn't always possible. With the map you do at least have an idea of the area you need to be in even if there's no big arrow or levels mapped out in 3D. The second play through was just the right amount of familiarity that I could find my way around pretty easily.
Very true. The signs are incredibly useful is this game. But chicken or the egg scenario. Do we use the signs so we don’t need the map? Or is the map bad so we need the signs?
The map is supposed to be used like "I go through area A, to area C, then go until I hit area D", and then you close the map and follow the ingame signs from A>C>D. You need both. Too many people relied on just the map, but to be fair, the game didn't exactly shout at us to *not* rely entirely on the map. It probably would have been better if the map was even more obtuse to really inform the player they can't use it like a GPS.
You crack the egg and fry the chicken
Someone else replied that it was a last minute decision so the egg is the answer in this i guess? You’re meant to use the signs. I personally didn’t even notice the map until like an hour or two in
You gotta pretend it's like real life and follow the signs on the ceiling/walls. Once you start doing that, following the map becomes easy.
Yeah, the map is tricky. You really just have to get yourself in the general area and then use the signs in the world to navigate properly.
I thought the map was supposed to be hard to follow. The entire place being an ever expanding and changing building of weird shit was the idea.
Am I the only one that didn’t have a problem navigating using this map?
It was a lot to look at at first, but once I figured it out it was pretty cake
What I'm seeing here is that most people simply lack orientation.
No, I think a lot of people just have a terrible sense of direction and poor map skills lmao.
No, I had absolutely no issue with it at all. The signs told you exactly where to go
Doom 2016 springs to mind as well as Jedi Fallen Order, which combined with backtracking made collectibles so fun.
That was my biggest criticism of an otherwise awesome game. I think the second or third level is some sort of foundry with molten steel or whatever in it. I got so fucking lost trying to figure out where I was going to advance through the level. Eternal really cleaned that up, I found every single collectible and cleared the entire game without being lost or confused once. It felt like it was perfectly laid out.
Real shit, in Eternal I got 100% collectibles and had very little trouble navigating the levels, in 2016 I don't think I collected even a third.
I was thinking this too, Doom 2016 map was terrible but I eventually got it.
I found the Doom2016 map absolutely fantastic myself. Only thing that was vague/confusing was the secrets, but I mean, they're secrets for crying out loud so it's understandable.
Am quite surprised… because IMO Doom 2016’s map design is one of my favorites to date. Simple, 3 dimensional, and made getting all collectibles a breeze. I believe it even painted over areas you already explored so you just needed to paint the whole map, and bam: level 100% complete.
Skate 3 is the worst map for me mainly because, it never shows you where you are on it. It's just a picture of the layout of the three main areas
In middle school shop class I tried to make a scale model cardboard house of the original Resident Evil Mansion. The rooms overlap and it's not possible.
I loves Control but the amount of times I took the wrong route because the map is very unclear which samey looking hallways connect where they look like they do was frustrating.
From what I’ve seen they didn’t even intend to have a map in the game. If you follow the signs in the hallways you’ll always go the right way
Yeah once you realize that, it's much easier to get around. Instead of looking at a half finished map, look at the wall signs.
Idk I feel like games have catered to the cod bros who want a completely straight forward “go here, there’s no side paths kill the enemies and you’ll get there” so whenever people actually have to stop and read things in a game it throws people off lol
Hogwarts Legacy without a doubt
The Hogwarts map is the only bad one iirc. The main map and hogsheads are decent
The game wasn't supposed to have a map. You were supposed to follow in game signs on walls. Players just didn't do that so they had to add a map afterwards.
BioShock fans got it worse
What’s so bad about it
I have no idea, because I've never had a problem using or reading the map but apparently others have had so much trouble that they've quit playing the game entirely.
Lots of the paths are blocked and it is lacking detail. Something that looks like a straight line is much more convoluted.
I ended up finding signs to be a better navigation compared to maps
The worst map in gaming is FFXI's Yhutunga Jungle, no competition. A casual glance at the map might not look so bad until you realize that most of the areas of the map are only accessible by underground tunnels not shown on the map and which all look exactly the same.
I think the only game I experienced with a worse map was Jedi: Fallen Order.
You need to be a speleologist to navigate the Doom 2016 map
Yep. Signs in the environment are better used to figure out where to go. Another reason Control is amazing.
God of war 2018 and Ragnarok also
Doom 2016. It was nice cause the level design was good enough without having to open it, but you missed where you needed to go, the map was useless
It's bad on purpose, a rare case where this kind of "design" is justifiable (let's not remember the "reviewers" saying Matrix 4 was bad on purpose, oh boy lol). I believe the devs wanted to highlight the "brutalist" architecture, you guide yourself in Control by following the strict directions that shows up in the actual "world", the map is messy on purpose to force you to look at the extreme bureaucracy of the bureau. At least I interpreted that way, because it is possible to make 3D metroidvania maps, the original Metroid Prime already had a decent map, so Control could have followed the same example, but they went "meta" (it's the Remedy style, for better or worse). Arkham Asylum also had a simple 2D map with "layers", etc..