On Shit Maps

[Rev+]

Alright, so you're making the kind of game in which it makes sense to have a map you can call up at will.  Not only does it make sense, but maybe it's kind of essential.

Has anyone ever got this right?

Elder Scrolls/Fallout are the worst recent offenders, because they're 2d maps for a 3d environment, which means that where the pointer is pointing you often makes no sense because it doesn't account for height.  You're right where you're supposed to be except nope, you need to go out of another door, do a loop, and find a set of stairs half an hour later.

Yeah, I have just had a quick shot on New Vegas.

[Mobius]

I like games where you can move whilst the map is open. Makes it really easy to orientate yourself.

Hate games where it takes more than 1 button to open the map.

Control has terrible maps, just no idea where you are and whether corridors are above or below you.

Also all maps should have the option to add custom waypoints and permanent notes.

[C_Larence]

I just 100% completed Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order tonight and could have probably done it in half the time if the map was even a little better. The final planet, Dathomir, was incomprehensible.

[beanheadmcginty]

Not quite the same point, but sort of related: every map I've ever seen in real life is rectangular, yet all in-game minimaps are circular. Why? I'm pretty sure the answer is "because that's what they looked like in GTA 3". But you'd think we would even moved on from that by now.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Skyrim's has a 3d/ish world map.

The 2D one has definitely fucked me on Morrowind a few times. I suppose the point is you are meant to discover it all, every fucking inch yourself so that means more craggy rocks and sqawking cliff racers.

[Inspector Norse]

Yeah any game like that where you get a map without actual roads or route markers and things so you put a waypoint down and head in that direction and end up spending three hours trying to climb up a too-steep fucking cliff face and end up binning it off and playing FIFA instead.

Skyrim's was fine because you could rotate it in 3D and see where the mountains and impassable bits were.

I just 100% completed Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order tonight and could have probably done it in half the time if the map was even a little better. The final planet, Dathomir, was incomprehensible.

I gave up halfway through that game because the utterly incomprehensible maps ruined it for me.

[NoSleep]

Elder Scrolls/Fallout are the worst recent offenders, because they're 2d maps for a 3d environment, which means that where the pointer is pointing you often makes no sense because it doesn't account for height.  You're right where you're supposed to be except nope, you need to go out of another door, do a loop, and find a set of stairs half an hour later.

I remember this happening with Guild Wars 2 but it isn't because the map is inherently shit, it's simply a puzzle aspect of the game that you have to solve.

[The Crumb]

I liked in Far Cry 2  and the Metro games where the map was a physical object in the world your character held up. Felt immersive and was helpful for navigating.

Not a real time map, but the galaxy map in the Mass Effect games has to be my all time favourite. Dripping with atmosphere it was.

[Mister Six]

Contender for worst-ever map has to be Deadly Premonition's, which appeared as its own full-screen entity in the options, but rotated like a minimap with your character, making it incredibly hard to orient yourself, even if you figured out where you were in relation to some in-game waypoint.

And each time you opened it, the game would play a creepy sampled piano jingle, which you'd hear over and over as you flipped between game and map, trying to work out where to go.

[Zetetic]

Really enjoyed drawing my own (somewhat shitty) map for Subnautica using a really half-assed triangulation setup.

[Blue Jam]

Really enjoyed drawing my own (somewhat shitty) map for Subnautica using a really half-assed triangulation setup.

Please do share that when you're done! Although I do like the fact that Subnautica has no map.

Control has terrible maps, just no idea where you are and whether corridors are above or below you.

Oh gawd yes. I love the style but while the maps look nice they're completely useless.

Been playing Bioshock lately and can't get on with the maps at all. They just seem too busy and over-designed.

I seem to remember the maps in the last few Wolfenstein games being a bit useless, only showing you one level at a time when there are several bits where you're climbing up stairs etc.

In Prey you can switch between floors. I don't use them anymore because I've played that game so many times I know Talos 1 like the back of my hand but I remember them actually being useful.

Crackdown 3 has a good 3D map which you can flip round, and which is entirely appropriate for a game where you do a lot of moving across the map vertically.

[Zetetic]

Please do share that when you're done! Although I do like the fact that Subnautica has no map.

I cannot remember what I was doing when I dropped Subnautica, but apparently my map looked like this at that moment.

I think I might have been plotting possible locations of a couple of the points (that weren't quite where the map's best guess is), based on some sort of model of my triangulation errors.

(It's done using R and plotly - you can hover over the points for names. Pulls everything from a Google Sheet. Some of the "Everything Else" correspond to beacons.)

[beanheadmcginty]

What was the FPS where you could open the map screen and continue moving? Rise of the Triad?

[Mister Six]

Duke Nukem 3D as well, and Doom? I think it was a common thing in early FPS games.

The Subnautica thing got me thinking it would be cool to have a map that looks very rough and inaccurate initially, after you survey an area with (for example) radar, but which becomes more detailed and accurate once you actually go to a place and see it directly. Or if you glimpse a view down a valley, the visible bit is detailed, but the stuff at the sides less so. Probably a massive pain in the arse to compute though.

Might also be cool to have a map that reflects your character's memory, that fades and becomes less detailed as you spend longer away from an area, with maybe areas changing if you're away from them long enough for the map to fade completely.

God knows how that would make a compelling game mechanic though.

[Zetetic]

Introversion's Scanner Sombre comes to mind, as touching on the same sort of concept in some ways.

I guess the real question is - if you're interested in uncertainty in mapping the game world as you discover it, why not just put that in the player's hands? Give them more in-game tools, perhaps, for making and correcting maps.

[bgmnts]

Really enjoyed drawing my own (somewhat shitty) map for Subnautica using a really half-assed triangulation setup.

Love this. I am so aimless in Subnautica and havent even created my own base after literally a dozen hours of wandering.

[Pink Gregory]

Did anyone ever play a game called Miasmata?

It ran like pish and looked kind of awful but it's about exploring this island to find plant ingredients for some kind of antidote, while you're being stalked by essentially a big tiger; you reveal the map by triangulating your position by finding two landmarks and drawing a line to where you are.  It was an interesting conceit at least.

[Replies From View]

Edit:  sorry, I thought this was the "On Fantastic Maps" thread