Sandbox elements, and how developers are using them to mask bad gameplay.

When I looked back on games released in 2015 I slowly realized, with a growing sense of dread, that a lot of games are now capable of getting away with poor core gameplay mechanics so long as they dress it up in Sandbox and open world elements. Witcher 3, Tomb Raider, MGS5, Arkham Knight, Just Cause 3, AC Syndicate etc. All games that were mired in sub par gameplay yet managed to get away with it because they were open world or whatever, and "who cares about actual gameplay with depth and complexity when you have a giant desert of nothingness to explore!" seems to be the mantra of most developers.

But what's even worse is that there isn't even any diversity between these titles, they're all homogenized with the same structure and tropes. You're dropped in this giant world and handed a checklist of collectibles and sidequests, before the game tells you exactly where all the collectibles and sidequests are and how to get to them through quest markers on your map. So any form of exploration is straight away thrown out the window.

There was a time when gamers complained about games becoming too linear, but is this not taking it to the other extreme? Making open world sandboxes just for the sake of it? What's even more sad is that this is likely going to continue into 2016. Horizon ZD seems like it will be doing the same thing and so does Far Cry. Why haven't more gamers called out on this issue yet?

I get what you're saying, but you kinda lost me when you said MGSV has sub-par gameplay. It's definitely bloated when it comes to its sandbox content, but the core gameplay itself is nothing short of magnificent. And unlike some of the other titles you mentioned, the sandbox setting serves to directly amplify its core gameplay.

Also, it's important to note the difference between a sandbox game and an open-world game. Witcher 3 is not a sandbox, but an open world where you interact with numerous characters and a series of branching quests. It is not a sandbox like MGSV, where you're given numerous tools and options to execute a series of mission objectives. One of these things is unlike the other.

I don't understand your inclusion of MGS5 or Arkham Knight.

Say what you want about their open world structure, but those two are top class when it comes to being video games.

Your point may be valid, but some of the games you mentioned as examples don't belong in there. MGS5 may have many faults, but it has excellent gameplay. Witcher 3 is actually a much better game thanks to its open world in almost every way possible- and never does it feel like its adding activities for the heck of it, nor is that open world necessarily a sandbox. Just Cause 3 is just more Just Cause, and the point of that game is to have a sandbox open to the players. Arkham Knight admittedly has some issues gameplay-wise, but it never tries to mask them with its open world and or with perceived depth in number of activities available.

@JangoWuzHere: MGS5 while having stellar gameplay, it can get pretty repetative because of the open world design.I feel like certain aspects of the gameplay were helped but others were made much more trivial/easier to deal with.

I don't see how MGS5 can get repetitive. Sure, some of the objectives can be a bit samey between missions, but the game gives you hundreds of different ways to tackle various tasks. It also doesn't punish you for picking one option over another. A person who carefully sneaks into a base using just a box will be rewarded the same as someone who storms in with a mecha blasting Final Countdown out of their idroid speaker.

It's pretty much the Crysis argument really. It's only boring and repetitive if you make it so.

I find its more fun because of the idea of doing the things you mentioned, but the bases/enemies don't exactly pose significant threats where tactics or well thought out plans really matter. There really isn't enough going on in between bases and the fact that you can run away and hide so easily kind of takes away from the overall danger when infiltrating a base. Some of the core gameplay mechanics seem to have no weight. Crysis is a SP game thats linear in design so the areas your assaulting are constantly changing and increasing threat. In mgsv you're spending alot of time running around then assaulting some little shanty town.

Only Just Cause is a sandbox in that list.

Witcher 3 has exceptional gameplay, it's not purely an action game which it isn't bad in either, it's an rpg based on decisions, characters, and story. Also you had the prep if you weren't playing on filthy casual mode like you know you were. The combat is good, you have different signs and the whole thing, you just play trash mode or never played it. Heck Witcher 3 is the least sandbox game ever, it has countless well done scripted quests and things to do.

Arkham Knight doesn't have bad gameplay, it just forces stuff, also sandbox = unscripted. Arkham Knight is heavily scripted and has a definite story.

MGS5 has su par gameplay? Arkham Knight has some of the best gameplay that's ever existed in video games in all of history. MGS5 is one of the most polished games in history, it gives you such amazing things to do. The problem was that it didn't have as much story as mgs games usually do, but it has the best gameplay to date.

AC Syndicate I can't say anything about but people always trash talk AC and apparently it was pretty good for an AC game at least.

Just Cause 3 is BUILT around being a sandbox game.

Seriously the only game above that had bad gameplay is AC Syndicate, Just Cause 3 and MGS 5 having the best gameplay we've had in years.

So this thread is stupid and you don't know what you're talking about.

I still think it is fun to do those things, even if it's not a huge challenge to pull them off. I do agree about the difficulty thing, It's why I rebought MGS5 on PC and downloaded some mods which make the game much harder. Vanilla MGS5 takes way too long to get challenging. By the time dudes in heavy armor show up, they pose little threat simply because of how OP your equipment is at that point.

IIf they fixed up the challenge progression in MGS5, it would have easily been my GOTY

Oh the gameplay is tons of fun, I think it just would have benefited from larger installations/indoors so you can't just run out of if you got caught. I think they squandered the open world design since there is very little danger traversing it and some of the benefits to the game play are almost negligible once you get some better equipment.

While yeah there are game that use open world to cover up bad game play all the games you mentioned are not good examples. Heck for as much as I found Assassin's creed Syndicate a by the numbers Assassin's creed the gameplay was not the problem with it. It was the story that was an absolute bore for me. The other games had good gameplay as well. Now it you said open world is used to cover up bad story telling then yeah I see where you are coming from with a few of those games. But this is one of those time where you shot and missed the target abit.

Sandbox gameplay ruined Arkham Knight with repetitive gameplay and they took all the awesome side stories out to sell as DLC

not sure why you listed Tomb Raider and Witcher 3. Gameplay is not the only focus in these games. The games have a strong storyline and narrative and they fill it nicely with semi to open worlds. And the gameplay is good in both games. Only bad part is witcher 3 is buggy as **** at times, but its like this with almost every huge open world game, also its interface/inventory system is the worst i seen in a modern game.

So these games are far from "sub par gameplay". They are huge improvements over previous versions in their francises.

But I agree with Just Cause 3... It has basically no logical plot, and its gameplay is buggy/broken and it runs like ass. It does fit a good example of awful gameplay and story with filler sandbox activities. Most Asscreed games are too much sandbox filler also, so i agree with that also. And neither of these games improved all that much from each sequel.

**** all the way off, op.

MGSV in terms of pure gameplay mechanics alone, sandbox, and emergent gameplay, had the best gameplay loop in not only the series, but of any game that came out last year.

Agree with other games up there though, such as Witcher 3 getting away with assbutter gameplay becuz "teh open woarlds, I can do so many things". It just devolves into a game where you're just "doing" a series of "stuff", things that you dont care about.

walking animations are assbutter (yes, I used assbutter twice), and he always overshoots where you want to move, etc.....I have no idea how the hell this game mopped up so many GOTYs and 10s. Bought it day one, and put it down after the griffin boss fight, and picked it back up a few days ago, and that shit is still boring. Even MGSV, with the entire third act ripped out of the game, had more substance.

I also dissagree about this overall "open world games are the opposite extreme to linear games". Its still the most flexible format for creating and telling a story in this medium (short of interactive Telltale-style games). When you can have games with as diverse worlds as GTAV, Red Dead Redemption, and L.A. Noire, all made by the same developer, all use the same format, but are all very contrasting atmospheres. What we had before, was every game trying to be a Gears of War cardboard wack-a-mole clone, and that was a far more creatively limiting format for diverse experiences. Example, see Uncharted. The storytelling the series HAS/WANTS to have does not match up with the context of the gameplay you're doing, because they had to shoehorn it into a Gears of War mold. Also, see The Order 1886. Basically, if Uncharted was more like MGS5 and less like Gears, the industry would be better for it.

Part of me thinks this false dichotamy is because gamers need to complain about something. The biggest thing we all complained about last gen is gone.

Exactly.

+1

Did you just say MGSV is masking sub par gameplay with an open world? It's one of the few games that uses open world as an advantage to gameplay. Idiot.

I listed MGS5 because it's open world just for the sake of being open world. The sandbox elements don't compliment the gameplay very well, as in they don't add anything to the experience other than traversing an empty desert to collect...flowers.

There's no need to get upset and start flinging insults because someone disagreed with your opinion on a videogame.

It does in mission design. As in being able to approach an encounter in a shit ton of different ways. I'd say the sandbox changes the core gameplay in more ways than most sandbox games do. Something like GTA's missions are basically linear set pieces akin to something in Uncharted despite it being set in a boundless open world. In MGSV, you can play the same mission in multiple different ways. Use a different location for entry, sneak in undetected, or simply gun the shit out of the place. It's a game with a million different mechanics, and an open world suited it very well.

No.

What's the problem? Open world games have always done this. Problem is some games do a better job of it than others. As long as tasks are varies, solid mechanics and fun gameplay, I don't mind. If it really does just start to feel like list of digital chores then I agree, don't like that.

MGSV's sandbox model greatly complimented the excellent gameplay. Many things went wrong with MGSV, the mix between gameplay and sandbox was not one of them.

lol what, I guess it boils down to opinion, but I thought they had great gameplay. MGS5 had the best gameplay in the series imo and witcher had a great complexity to it. TR and AK both improved on their previous games imo (but ya batmobile if thats what you are talking about).

saying it can get pretty repetitive is putting it nicely. MGSV is the king of doing the same thing over and over again.

Depends on your point of view really, I think an argument can be made for many games

But that's exactly the problem. When you give players more choice then there's less focus on individual mechanics overall, which is a common problem with sandbox games.

@JangoWuzHere: One could argue that if you have to keep switching up your playing style just to keep from getting bored, that that's a flaw on the game's part.

I was about to come in here and agree with you but then I saw MGSV has sub-par gameplay. The one thing that game nailed was the gameplay, GOAT worthy gameplay right there.

I will agree with you that the open world is pointless. A much better approach would have been Ground Zeroes style multiple big areas instead of 2 empty open worlds. Its open world was trash, MGS4 had a better sense of being on an actual battlefield. It was just outposts scattered across an empty world, no villages, no soldiers fighting each other like in MGS4, no sense that it's an actual war zone.

Games like Bloodborne and Uncharted 4 will stand out this gen with their superb level design in a generation of open world games with fetch quests.

That's true for most games. MGSV is like 90 hours long, so If you use the same play style over and over, it will get boring.

Most long RPGs drip feed the player with new abilities and skills. MGSV drip feeds the player with new equipment and mechanics. If you don't make use of the new stuff you're getting, then you will tire out before you reach the end.

The structure is just plain bad almost every time. The gameplay is very linear for having such expasivr worlds. Character to world interaction needs to greatly improve. Amazing that Mario64 still has the best of this and it was made 20 years ago.

I disagree with the MGSV part as well, but you all could move on to the rest of his point.

And yeah I fucking agree. Open world games have always had suspect game mechanics, sans the odd exception that initially you wouldn't tell yourself is an open world game (Mario 64, STALKER) and other things like Deus Ex or Crysis. But none of the modern open world games actually focus on player agency and mechanical freedom. The Far Cry games by Ubisoft don't come close to the freedom of the original game, much less Crytek's good Crysis games (1 and Warhead), Ass Creed has always been trash in the combat department, there is absolutely zero defense for how The Witcher 3 plays, And Arkham Knight actually lose something going more GTA. Arkham City worked because it was more Zelda than straight up open world, and Asylum was dope because it was more Metroid.

It's modern triple A game design though. If they can't win you over on flashy set pieces, it's through sheer quantity of content with a gameplay loop that is just okay enough that your compulsive side will want to finish off the checklist. It's devoid of creativity, it's banal, and because gamers have shit taste to boot, its allowed a bit of regression in the one thing this medium should never be regressing in: the interactivity as in the fucking gameplay. Good job.

@jg4xchamp:

Modern design is almost equal to film design. Get them in and out of a shallow presentation and get them ready for the next big release.

blockbuster films? Sure, it's basically that. Triple A stuff is whatever, the smaller budgeted stuff is where all the creativity and craftsmenship is; barring some rare exceptions.

I disagree. Most of the "indie" stuff is shoddy. It has become very easy to shoot something and people seem to have lost the craft of actually editing because of it.

Modern quality films look less impressive in the context that film has a rich history, modern games look less impressive on their fucking own, they don't need gamings rich history to make them look poor. So I wildly disagree, I mean **** even Fury Road this year was showing up some quality cinematography chops, and that's a fucking mad max movie.

As for MGSV is repetitive, if we're talking side ops? Sure, they are repetitive. But that's been the nature of side content in video games, for decades. If we're talking the main missions, on chapter 1 alone you people are on drugs and need to learn what the word means. Because

Mission 1: First get intel on kaz's location, then sneak into outpost to actually extract (and it ends with the skulls)

Mission 4: destroy the comm system

Mission 6: Sneak into that one cave shit at the bottom of the canyon, get the rocket launchers, now deal with the skulls

Mission: 7: Take out 3 dudes, can be done multiple ways, including going to 3 separate outposts, or take them all out at once

Mission 8: Take down a colonel, where if you take too long there is also a tank convey you have to deal with, and that can be hit while on the move, or taken down easier at that one compound you steal the killer bee from

Mission 9: Destroy multiple convoys

Mission 10: Extract prisoner from that broken down palace

Mission 11: Fight a sniper

Mission 12: Sneak back out of a compound you already went into, grab Heuy from one of the more elaborate outposts, and oh yeah Gundam at the end

Mission 13: blow up oil factory

Mission 14: Tail an interpreter first, then you get to the extracting, and you never come back to this area ever again

Mission 15: blow up walker gears

Mission 16: extract that truck. Which you either can take out at an airport and deal with skulls, or get on the move, in between 2 tanks before they reach the finish line

Mission 18: get a bunch of kids out of a mine, and now escort their asses, and they are fucking kids so they barely listen

Mission 20: Devil's House stuff

Mission 22: It's a PVP thing

Mission 25: deal with child soldiers, all your guns are taken away

Mission 28: Codetalker, first there is that swamp, then there is getting in that bitch, and then its getting out of that bitch

Mission 29: **** this, you fight skulls at an airport

Mission 31: Fight a gundam

Translation? The game is plenty varied, and that's without using the "you have so many tools at your disposal to be creative", the larger issue with the game is Chapter 2 is structured stupid and that the game doesn't have difficulty settings, when the franchise was so fucking good at it, and not lazy like say the Witcher 3 at it.

Fury Road is the new Mad Max, correct? I have not seen it yet but I know that an established, well respected filmmaker was behind it.

Yeah, its plot is the simplest shit ever, it's one giant chase lol. But its shot beautifully, paced really well. I'm not disagreeing with some modern film short comings. Hollywood produces less creative and less far reaching ideas, the modern action flick is ruined by attempts at rounding out the rough edges, and **** superhero flicks, and there is that worry that a lot of the quality film makers these days aren't new to the industry or even young. That said it's no real different than gaming, the mega budgeted stuff is so safe to the point of being dull, but there is a bunch of quality shit that goes under the radar for most of the year. Modern entertainment in general is like that, sans TV I guess. Since there is no real thing as independent TV.

The problem with this though, is that the open world is more of a negative at this point. It dilutes the gameplay quite a bit. Especially since some of the secondary mission objects you need certain resources to accomplish which require you to spend a lot of time in in the field. There's also seems to be too much room in most of the missions.

Then there are missions like mission 9, which is so trivial to accomplish anything extra is is kind of forced diversity. My first time playing it I think I accomplished all of the side missions, S ranked it, in 1 attempt. That's partially due to just dumb AI. I found the tank on the level, parked it in the way, and was able to folton all 4 vehicles without any of them attempting anything even though only 1 was unmanned.

Any way, i think i'm argueing the opposite of what the TC stated. The open world is hiding good gameplay in this case, probably to try in take advantage of grinding/basebuilding, which in turn allows them to monetize aspects of the game.

I'm not disagreeing that the open world wasn't necessarily the route he needed to go, on the contrary it could have been mission by mission of pocket sandboxes. That worked great for Splinter Cell and Hitman for instance, and MGSV's mechanics would thrive in a situation like that. Besides I went back to my chopper everytime i was done with a side op, because **** fast traveling in that world. And side ops? 157 was too many, an even 50 would have at least been tolerated, and chapter 2 should have just been the story missions, with the game having proper difficulty settings, as opposed to having only a select portion of Chapter 1 having higher difficulty missions.

Because as much as I found that to be filler structurally, I can't say I hated playing all 50 main missions. Even the repeating missions on a higher difficulty play fucking divine, because the new rule sets for Subsistence missions or just the bump in difficulty strengthens they already superb gameplay of MGSV. Personally Mission 9 being a bit of a cake walk with extra stuff to do works wonders for it, I don't need everything necessarily to be difficult, it works as a nice cooling off period. Plus I did a lot of missions by doing every single thing during the mission on my first try. Beauty of that game is on replays you see that the great level design is even better than you thought it was, and areas you thought were fairly average, are actually a lot closer to great than you initially thought it was.

Did it need to be an open world game? Nah, mostly because Kojima doesn't know how to structure one, or didn't have the time to structure one while also wanting to do everything else he did. MGSV is the man flying too close to the sun, but him flying too close to the sun happens to be the best playing triple A game on the PS4, Xbox One, or the fucking PC this generation. Easily.

I thought this about playing Shadow of Mordor for the first time this week..... what a weak ass game content wise.... fucking pathetic... people complain about assassins creed? Blackflag had FAR more going for it than this game...

lol what the **** is MGSV doing in your OP?

If anything, it's the stellar game mechanics that mask the poor open world. And even then, it's the sandbox nature of the game in conjunction with said mechanics that make the game so excellent to play. It's the sandbox itself that could have been better, with more bases, bigger bases and more conflict to run into between bases.

The gameplay? Get out of here man (and go play MGSV).

Dude stahp. I've never posted a facepalm pic and I don't want to start now.

I agree with you but disagree with some of the examples (Witcher 3 especially... It may not have best combat ever but the game design and quest system is solid).

That said, add some story heavy games on that list too. A lot of these games suck at gameplay and storytelling is used to distract people from poor level design and bad encounters.

SO let me get this straight

You call X games bad for their core gameplay, then you COMPLETELY forget to say what core gameplay. You also TOTALLY forget to understand that Open-World is a huge feature of these game. It's like saying hey, fighting games sucks ass because they only have one feature. Really?

Does a sport car suck because it does not have the same features that a luxury car does? Or because what it excel in is something else entirely. How about you discuss the core gameplay and explain why they suck.

Mordor is pretty mediocre, but the playing it part, I'll take Mordor any day of the week.

Tomb Raider, MGSV and Arkham Knight? Two of those games play very well and one of them is among the best playing games of this gen. You might want to spend more time playing games and less time talking about them.

In the context of this topic, I think TW3 fits. If you were to dump TW3s gameplay into a linear environment, nobody would want anything to do with it. That's not to say it's a bad game by any stretch, but the world your in goes a long way towards covering up the gameplay.

Tomb Raider had good combat though.

But it's not a linear game. Compare Witcher's gameplay with other fantasy open world games like Skyrim and you'll see the difference. Not to mention, the game's world is full of handcrafted quests (compare it to grind fest that Ubisoft with their thousands of employees is known for).

Even making a small game becomes challenging at one point and you have to work hard to make it work. Here you have a big ass open world with solid game design, great story, great presentation, great quests etc. I don't think it's fair to criticize the game just because its gameplay isn't perfect. A lot of great games aren't perfect. Witcher 3 at the end of the day is still system based game that offers a lot of freedom and player driven experience.

There are a lot of other overrated studios out there that release cookie cutter linear as hell shooters and still can't get basic gunplay right, and their games aren't system based either, and restrict player movement at every corner. Such games try hard to make themselves look like movies because what they lack in gameplay, they have to make up for it in the story but most of them also suck at story.

That's a strawman argument, no one is asking for perfection. But it's a game, the interacting with it part should be good, and given how many quests come down to you fighting something, the combat is mediocre at best. It's not actually good at one element of its combat engine. It comes out looking better against even shittier battle systems (Bethesdas), which isn't actually a good argument for it. So homeboy's point stands the rest of that game is working overtime to mask how poor the actual mechanics are.

to be fair i think he's just using sandbox in stead of open-world which is what he should go with. Because lets be real, they could have just made those outposts as their own individual levels, the open world aspect of MGSV didn't really add all that much to the game, I straight up spent most of my time doing a side op, then returning to ACC. Kill side op. Return to ACC.

And in the context of main missions, they shorten the map to what your mission radius is, as leaving it fails the mission.

@jg4xchamp:

Yeah, the distinction has to be made there. As an open world, MGSV is sorely lacking, but the sandbox play is great. Even Ground Zeroes, as relatively small as it was and as limited as you were with gear, still made for an excellent stealth sandbox. I would argue that Camp Omega was actually better than any individual location in MGSV.

Not to stray too far from the point, but I think that open world MGS could have worked very well. The potential was there. Though given the execution in MGSV, yeah multiple sandbox hubs would have made for the better game. It would take away from some of the aspects I enjoyed about MGSV, but the overall experience would have been better off for it.

If given the option (in a hypothetical MGS6), I would rather see them fix their errors in open world design than simply scale it back to hubs, but that ship has sailed so no point dwelling on it.

-

All that said though, MGSV just doesn't fit the premise of this topic at all. Dude straight up mentioned poor gameplay mechanics and MGSV in the same paragraph. That shit doesn't fly at all lol.