Map clarity
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One of the major problems I had in the last 2 tests was that I couldn't tell if a certain area could be passed or not. When you are exploring, you only waste about 10min by readjusting the route so it's not a big deal. However, being chased can get frustrating real quick if you can't tell where dead-ends or chokepoints are by looking at the map (especially on asteroids or invasions). I understand many games have this problem, but most of those are not full loot pvp. I also understand that this is an alpha, but this issue seems to be related to how the terrain works (which most likely won't change at release), and to a lesser degree to the graphics style (this could be solved by changing the saturation of non passable areas, and correct the maps by hand; but as I understand some maps are supposed to be randomly generated). I will compare it to Albion to make my point easier.
Pressing M in Fractured (max zoom) vs the one in Albion. The maps in Albion are ugly, but once you get used to the symbols, you can easily tell which piece of land is passable and other useful information. In Fractured however, you have no chance guessing where is the passable land by looking at the map for a couple of seconds. For example, all the red marks are the impassable land I remember around my house. Most of the time I couldn't locate such barriers when traveling to a new area and had to walk along them for a few minutes.
Minimaps suck in both games, so I will just focus on the one in Fractured. There is a lot of impassable area in the radar below. Where do you think it is? How fast can you detect it while running?
And the reason why I started this thread: that's a passable area in both games. For the full image, clicky Fractured and Albion.
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i like fractured. as you play you'll get use to the land and will navigate it better. we just test it so are limited in the familiarity of it.
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Hope we get something like UO Map with all sorts of tools we can use to mark locations explored and even connect with friends to keep track of each other.
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I'd agree that this is something I hope will improve btw now and the beta. At a certain distance, any map will be unclear, but as one zooms the detail needs to be sufficient to see whether the terrain ahead can be traversed, or what's the point of having the map? The trade-off for detail like that is that you can't see as far when you zoom in.
Thanks for listening, devs!
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Well, as I understand it exploration and knowing the landscape you are in giving you an advantage is supposed to be a feature of Fractured. In prior minimaps you did not even have the black lines which can give you a rough idea, but I never thought it to be a problem. If you give away too much information in the map / minimap exploration becomes rather "useless" and you take away the advantage somebody can have with knowing the landscape.
I just hope they don´t destroy those two points when they add additional information to the map.
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How exactly would exploration be destroyed by proper maps and the ability to tell if the land in front of you is passable or not? I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous. Exploration will always be a thing because you can't see the spawn location of a resource on the map. On the other hand, what you see in the image below and not having proper maps will result in a lot of frustration when being chased/ganked. It often feels like many people who comment here haven't actually played a full loot pvp game and have little understanding how their opinions can affect the gameplay in a very negative way.
PS: If anyone knows what's the tag for spoiler... please share it with me.
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If people are wanting realism allow players to buy maps from npcs that improve what you can find in detail.
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Map crafting profession could come in handy here.
If things remain as they are, and passable lands aren't clearly visible on default map. Then an ability for players to explore and draw their own more precise maps and sell them could be a nice addition to the game.
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@Farlander
Then why do we even need a poorly represented radar and map? If the aim is realism, just get rid of them.@Gothix
How do people create these maps? Do you lose them on death? Maps websites will inevitably appear if they will implement such professions, giving a big edge to people with 2 monitors.PS: I strongly believe a detailed map is pretty much mandatory and does in no way interfere with exploring.
PPS: One of the important issues I raised is how sometimes it's very hard to tell passable from impassable land by standing next to it (as in the screenshot of post 6). This is related to the terraforming tool.
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@Razvan perhaps, some map details could be dynamic and change over time, and if you "learned the map" in game, then your in game map would auto update accordingly. This is something web map wouldn't give you, at least not right away, it would significantly lag behind, considering how huge the map will be.
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@Razvan said in Map clarity:
@Farlander
Then why do we even need a poorly represented radar and map? If the aim is realism, just get rid of them.@Gothix
How do people create these maps? Do you lose them on death? Maps websites will inevitably appear if they will implement such professions, giving a big edge to people with 2 monitors.PS: I strongly believe a detailed map is pretty much mandatory and does in no way interfere with exploring.
PPS: One of the important issues I raised is how sometimes it's very hard to tell passable from impassable land by standing next to it (as in the screenshot of post 6). This is related to the terraforming tool.while creating the map, it's an item and is subject to loot rules. the item can be copied and given/sold to whomever.
as an alternative, the profession keeps a 'mental record' of it and can create physical items to be shared/sold. the cartography profession allows a larger area for creating the map, it's more detailed (say smaller hills/water/streams are noted). these could be nodes on the knowledge tree to expand the information that can be added to map. such as creature spawn locations, notable locations for specific trees, etc.
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Ok, the solution is simple: maps need to be more detailed so we can plan our travels/have a chance to escape ganks, and impassable land (hills/ledges etc) need better texturing to look drastically different than passages.
This discussion pretty much crossed into the realm of mind gymnastics with over complicated solutions that don't even solve the problem in the first place and create new ones (especially for frequent randomized terraforming). And anyway, even with detailed maps you're already at disadvantage when traveling in unknown land compared to someone who "lives" there. Why would I risk losing extra money on maps in unknown areas when I can stay on an island as big as Myr and learn all the obstacles in a month of casual play? This pretty much hinders exploration than encourages it.
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@Razvan Good point, walking somewhere 10 minutes to find out path leads nowhere is frustrating.
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so we need movement abilities that bypass the terrain! got it.
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Ok Jetah, have a nice day!
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@Razvan said in Map clarity:
PS: If anyone knows what's the tag for spoiler... please share it with me.
This Forum uses Markdown syntax.
As i know there is no syntax for hidden text. But not sure, if this forum maybe has an additional funktion that can get activated for spoiler text.But with markdown you can use way more than you usually do.
Beside the stuff on the tool bar, you also can create tables and a checklist, i tested it, and it works well on this forum.
If you want to know, what is possible with Markdown, look to this Guide.
I did not test all of them, but i think most will work here on forum.
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@Kralith
Thank you! I just checked the documentation and stackoverflow for some time, but I concluded that spoiler tags are probably not implemented and html is not supported on this forum. Nested quotes should be hidden by default.
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Not all forums implement all the elements even if their base supports it.
Less element = faster forums
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@Razvan we're going to rebuild the map and minimap before the next test, hopefully we'll manage to make paths clearer
On a side note, what were the coordinates of the place in your second screenshot? That's not meant to be passable eheh
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@Prometheus
Glad to hear that.
-5516W / -2179N
I think it's supposed to be a passable because that place is marked as road on radar.
