Should Other Games follow the Footsteps of Divinity: Original Sin???

One thing that a lot of old games did better than most new games is that, they tried to make their environments as immersive as possible. In these games, you had to become part of the world and do everything on your own.

In most modern high profile games, developers make sure that their games are played by as much people as possible, or in some cases they don't even expect their audience to use their brain and treat them as kids. Hence, they implement quest marker and radar map in their games.

When you look back and see games like Thief 2, you see that players have to play those games carefully, plan ahead and find their way to their objective on their own. The map, used in Thief games was real world object that is acquired by the protagonist somehow (from some old trunk, through a contact inside the building etc etc etc).

Sometimes, these maps are helpful but sometimes,,, not so much because if the map is old and the place that you are visiting have changed ever since, then it won't help you much and you'll have to figure out everything on your own. This gives you the feeling of being lost and helpless, and makes your achievements even more rewarding and satisfying, and your journey more immersive.

For several years, we lacked this design philosophy in games, until Divinity: Original Sin's release. Originally, I wasn't so sure about lack of quest markers in the game and thought that it might frustrate me in today's era. But I was surprised to find out that this design philosophy works extremely well even today.

Everything was crafted so carefully, so you never get frustrated and are rewarded by the game pretty quickly, even if you put just a tiny bit of hard work into the game. You have to read books and notes or talk to people to find the way to your objective. You can also find your way to objective by just exploring the world on your own. This makes the game so immersive and rewarding.

Hell, you can break the rules and find your own way to deal with the objective, other than number of ways implemented by the developers and the game still continues to work without breaking itself and making itself unplayable for the player because he/she did something that wasn't expected/implemented by the developers.

While on paper, this may not sound interesting to most gamers of today but I encourage others to try it out. It is way more fun this way, if you have enough experience in gaming. So my question is, should other games also go for more immersive approach and let players figure out everything on their own, or should developers continue to implement radar maps, linear levels and leave ammo crates after every 2 meters to make sure players are not lost?

I agree completely. I think a lot of developers have lost their way, and in an effort to make their games as accessible as possible they are forgetting about what games are trying to be in the first place. Ubisoft is probably the worst when it comes to open world gameplay because of the way they full the map with icons of things to do and places to see and show you exactly how to get there. It actually defeats the purpose of an open world, and in this case may as well be a linear game.

How exciting would it be to play an open world game where, at the beginning, the map is mostly empty and YOU have to go out and explore to discover things. How cool would it be if when a character explains the location of something, instead of pointing an arrow directly at the location, you have to figure it out yourself by their description, or perhaps by a crudely drawn map that's not very accurate.

So much effort goes into creating these huge and detailed open worlds, but it's effort wasted because the gameplay that takes place in these environments has been streamlined to such a degree it has become shallow and boring, and the environments offer nothing more than something pretty to traverse while you follow a dotted line or arrow. How anyone can be entertained by an open world Ubisoft game is a mystery to me. Good for them I guess since they get released every year...

Edit: I also can't wait for D:OS2, the first was awesome.

7th Dragon Saga did and that game got panned for being seemingly a divinity clone.

But other than that, game developers could learn a lot from Divinity: Original Sin. Not only what it did right, but also what it got wrong.

I remember the first time playing Divinity Original Sin, I had no clue where to go and what to do. After a few hours, I was thinking more with solving quests and using the elements available in battle.

To have an ally set up a poison cloud then to shoot a fire arrow for an massive explosion, that's a feature that I really like in the game. I backed Original Sin 2 and I can't wait!

immersion is a must, yes. main reason why the Souls series are my fav.

There is picture of id, presumably all in their 20's,standing smiling together, a gleeful sense of frontier enthusiasm radiates from the image, it's instantly apparent these guys have passion for what they are doing, it's more than just a job, it's labour of love. Without lnowing them personally.an imporession of their character is imbued in the game, imprinted like a woodcut,

Then you play almost any modern blockbuster, calculated and cold, designed with demographic charts, probably with some **** in a suit saying "This is currently hot" to lined up old men who look like x-files baddies.

Games that challenge the player to plan and think ahead are definitely in the minority these days. I'm hopeful though that as the average age of gamers increase there will be a corresponding increase in the thought required to play more games. There is a balance to get right though, unleashing a player on a world with no guidelines what so ever is not a good way to go. Divinity comes very close to getting the balance just right, it doesn't 'tell' you where to go but does leave plenty of clues. The fights can be difficult and any fight can kill you, if you get your strategy wrong.

Are people trying to imply that rail on corridor games with QTE's arent the way to??

I love the puzzles in divinity , it’s kinda like a great click-n-point adventure where the game makes you to use your brain and think , for instance I I was trying go to phantom forest and and the only way into it was a bridge that blocked by some nasty poisonous cloud ,I tried all the resistance potions but none of ‘em worked out, I was going to give up but instead I increased my pet skill level which gave me an ability to talk to animals , then I found a cat and she told me about some people who knows how to get into the forest....problem solved. ..form things I saw in the preview, I'm sure the 2nd game is going to more immersive and far better than the first one .... hope this game knock some sense into Bioware

^^ This right here is the reason why I think Divinity OS was the best RPG in years. I love how they are improving upon it in the sequel, instead of changing their design philosophy.

Agreed 100%. This is definitely an area where Larian excels. I remember playing Divine Divinity and the sheer amount of freedom the game gave the player. I remember getting lost and heading into an area way out of my level range and getting slaughtered by the enemies. None of the enemies scale to your level like other popular rpgs and no marker to say "go this way". Divinity:OS enhanced this and was an amazing game and I'm really excited to see what they can do with part 2.

This is a great read about the HUD-less design of the first Assassin's Creed: http://stanislavcostiuc.com/2016/03/02/hud-less-design-of-assassins-creed-1/. Ubiosft bravely tried to go for this in the AAA-space and failed so they went in the extreme in the other direction...

For a game to be possible to be played HUD-less it has to be developed around it from the ground up so there are enough clues for the player to work things out. I mean figuring out the exact spot you need to visit in say GTAV to start a mission is no fun at all of course. Needless to say this takes way, way more work for the developers. As the AC article above points out it may also require to use more standardized design to facilitate for the player to find patterns.

I 100% agree with you that playing HUD-less is way more satisfying. Just to take AC as an example again, the difference between looking up to find a lookout tower as opposed to looking down on your mini-map is massive in terms of immersion. At the same time games of course need to respect that not everyone want to put in the extra effort. Solution is to build games so it's possible to play HUD-less and then have toggleable HUD-elements that help casuals. How much information the player gets is just as an important part of the difficulty setting as how much damage you inflict/receive.

Modern games like FarCry 4 have really great HUD-customization options, but they lack the necessary hints to make it possible to go through the story without artifical help. So in a sense they are actually too difficult :).

Yeah I agree. In Thief 2014, you can also turn off the hud but the game is designed with hud in mind, so it doesn't reward players or it doesn't have level design to promote hud less gameplay. Same is the case with other AAA games where you often hear people telling others that "Don't like detective vision then don't use it" or "don't use map"... but the thing is, the game is designed from ground up to take advantage of these "features".

the combat design is great , the missions and side quests are great , there ain't even one repeatable or stupid radiant quest in the game, they're all different and well-designed and you can finish them in many ways, now with a great designer like Chris Avellone we can expect better story and better characters ....

If everything goes right, it'll be a complete package and one of the best game ever made.

Yeah, I'd rather have a quest marker, thanks. Not a fan of not knowing where to go.

I bought the game last year but never got around to play it yet, I'm playing the Division and I have Divinity Original Sin whats wrong with me

These things you speak of, they have been staples of PC RPGs for a long time. It wasn't until developer started consolizing games that they started implementing baby's 1st RPG crap into them.

How is gameplay of Divinity : Original Sin? Over the Top camera tactical rpg as Diablo or Torchlight games?

Top down view. Real time exploration in sandbox environment and top of the line turn based combat. Wasn't so sure about turn based combat in the beginning but after playing the game, I wish more top down games used it. Didn't enjoy Pillars of Eternity as much as I expected after playing Divinity OS, because of its superior combat and hand crafted encounters.

Sure some, but what's great about gaming is there is literally multiple games that anyone can find fun and enjoyable.

There is no magic formula for games to make all people like to play to them,

Ahhh! shame i'm not into over the top view rpg games lol. I was reading Divinity II is real time Hack N Slash rpg , very interested in playing that one :)

@indzman: Neither Diablo nor Torchlight are very tactical. They are action RPG's with heavy loot elements.

This is more of a traditional cRPG. It's a DIablo like perspective, you are controlling a party, and combat is turn based. Loot elements are much more toned down in favor of tactical combat, story, character development, exploration, etc.

I don't think it always succeeds at all of those elements, but it's overall a fantastic RPG. I personally prefer something like Pillars of Eternity though.

Whats crpg?

Does it atleast play like Dragon age Origins? I mean can i play in 3rd person view if i wish ? Tactical is okay with me, but over the top camera, restricted view i'm not a fan of lol.

Fans consider Divinity 2 saga as black sheep of the franchise. But sure if it interests you then pick it up :-)

@indzman: Draogn Age Origins is a cRPG. c(computer or classic) RPG is a pseudo sub-genre.

They tend to be western RPG's with a heavy emphasis on story (especially narrative that is PLAYER driven, and not just linearly told to you), exploration and tactical combat. Combat is usually always about working with a party of adventurers/heroes/what have you.

Baldur's Gate 2, Planescape Torment, pillars of eternity, Divinity: Original Sin, Wasteland 2, Torment: Tides of Numenera,, Dragon Age: Origins, KOTOR 1/2 and the Might and Magic series, are some examples.

Real time Hack N slash interests me very much lol. But i played and enjoyed few old school rpg's as KOTOR 1 and 2. But never could get into Diablo, Torchlight lol. Hence was asking you if D OS plays like those as D OS is critically acclaimed game :)

Thanks for the info very much :)

So D OS plays like DA O Ya?

@indzman: Well, the main differences are that Origins featured real time pausable combat, while this is purely turn based. Also Dragon Age featured a much more in depth story that took itself a lot more seriously, and featured a lot more fully developed companions.

It was a bigger game with a bigger budget. Now, Divinity is a huge game too, but the smaller budget of course meant that they couldn't write intricate story lines for 8+ companions.

I'd say, at least give the game a chance. Sure opening moments are hard as fvck but once you learn ins and outs of the game, it's a lot of fun to play. It may even convert you. Just my opinion.

Hmmm, will check out some gameplay vids of D OS on youtube then. Thanks again for your response, was thinking to get D OS as everyone praises about it in SW but i had no interest as i thought it was like Diablo Or Torchlight games from screens ( played those and was not impressed ). Thanking you again :)

i'll check some gameplay vids shortly, Thanks for the input Cloud :)

Completely agree.

I find that modern games now kind of corral the player, in one way or another, to the next objective. There is diminished satisfaction in simply holding down a key or button and working towards a general area, performing repetitive tasks along the way, then getting another area to go to.

I'm finding a lot of this occurs in The Division; while an enjoyable game, it does not feel nearly as open-world as I thought it would be, and with how the city is laid out and how objectives are pretty much just a trail with token enemy encounters, it's just not that exciting. Rewards are purely cosmetic or tangible (and quickly replaced by new ones), there is no feeling of achievement.

I think that is what it boils down to for me: modern games do not foster any sense of achievement or ingenuity. Your hand is held from waypoint to waypoint, and unless you are an achievement/collectible hound, there is not much cause to do anything else.

I need to revisit Divinity: OS, still have not beaten it. I'll never forget the first time I talked to a cow...

I thought press X to win was the way forward.

(my sarcasm is on better form today)

Also OP, good post I agree with it.

Agreed. These arguments sound like politics to me. One way is THE way to do things. And that just isn't true for an entire industry. There are many different types for the many different types of consumers. Enjoy Divinity TC, turn based combat made me say cant get into it.

Should Other Games follow the Footsteps of Divinity: Original Sin???

No they shouldn´t and hopefully not.

Games like Divinity is one the kind/style of games I don´t like even a little bit.

I still prefer games that function that way, and actually have a distaste for hand holding, but it depends on how archaic and cryptic the game goes. Most of the time I can't sit and play a 50 hour game in a week. I might play it over 1-2 months. It's wholly unfun to pick a game up a week after I last played, and have no idea where to go.

Different strokes for different folks, i mean while i love the immersion in games, there are other ways to implement it and some people really don't like to wander around aimless without a clear indication of where to go...that doesn't mean they are bad players, is just that they don't enjoy that apporach, personally i loved Pillars of Eternity due to the sense of exploration and terrific sound design without leaving the players clueless about their destination.

So i don't think most games should follow Divinity's approach, but i do think that they should improve on their formular for people who loves those kind of games.

First of all, I will say this. Divinity: Original Sin was not only my GOT for 2014, but it is also my favorite cRPG in ages.

But now, to be the typical negative Nancy everyone probably sees me as being.

Divinity: Original Sin got more things wrong than right. The game excels at environmental interaction and especially how it flows into combat, and even some occational problem solving. But the game ultimately got most things wrong.

• Writing was bad.
• The character system wasnt terribly well thought out, and far too easy to break, with the Lone Wolf and Glass cannon traits being potential game rbeakers.
• While the lack of a quest compass was great, the quest log could have done a better job communicating the goals to the player.
• The atmosphere and overall campaign design was inferior to Divine Divinity.
• Because of the world (as in level design). There was a lot of backtracking, seeing the exact same corpses lie down there, not even rotting since you last left them. Caused the world to feel really stagnant and static. Baldur's Gate 2 for instance fixed this by making sure that if you visited an area, you would probably not be backtracking there. A world map would do D:OS many favors.

Now, I can see quite a few of these things being fixed for the sequel. In terms of writing and quest logs, with MCA on board, with him supposedly getting a bigger role than his tiny role in POE, I can see the writing and communication done much better. In terms of character system, D:OS2 looks to be the first computer game since Majora's Mask to get races done right (Sorry Wizardry 8, the only interesting race you had were the faeries), so there is that. Likewise, the game looks to be adding quite a few new combat schools, which should give melee fighters and non mages more ways to play the game really. I cant say for the atmosphere yet, but overall, it looks just as cartoony, which I am not entirely sure will ever reach the atmosphere divinity 1 had.

And I say that, strongly favoring Original Sin over Divine Divinty. If D:OS2 fixes everything I didnt like about D:OS1, we might have the GOAT on our hands.

Couldn't disagree anymore if I tried. I even had to take a double take and re-read to make sure it didn't say "Divinity: Original Sin got more things right than wrong".

While I love the game and it was also my GOTY that year, I did have some issues with it. Mainly The writing of the dialogue and story was pretty average to bad. Some of the writing for the characters was a bit better, but still paled in comparison to the likes of other modern crpgs like Wasteland 2, Shadowrun Hong Kong and Pillars of Eternity.

The big hole in Original Sin was the writing, no other issues are big enough to go against the things that it does oh so well (world design, combat, atmosphere, graphics, coop,etc..). You can be picky about a few other small things, but the big elephant in the room for Divinity, despite it being that years GOTY and one of the best rpgs in years (for me its up there with Witcher 3, Pillars and Wasteland 2, all for different reasons).

Divinity did so many things perfectly that I honestly can only take the writing as the one aspect that could have been greatly improved and which stopped the game from being perfect. I know everyone has there own opinion and I do agree with alot of what you wrote, in the end though for me, the one thing I got from Divinity after seeing it get made and finishing it after 3-4 weeks was that "This game does oh so much more right than it does wrong". Even though i agree with you on many points, I can't agree with that generalization, it did so much more right that it did wrong, atleast for me as a gamer of 30 years.

Pillars and Wasteland 2 for me had much better writing, but not as solid in other aspects when compared to Divinity (such as combat,etc..), each brought some awesome aspects to the table though for me personally. I am eagerly awaiting Divinity Original Sin 2, especially because after I beat Original Sin I said to a friend "My dream would be for Obsidian or Chris Avellone to do the writing for a sequel to this game, it is really the only aspect I can really harp on as needing alot of work". And low and behold, Chris hops in to do some of the writing, what great news. So nice to see Larian doing well!

The atmosphere was poor compared to the first game. That is why I am expressing disappointment in it.

Anyways, I agree with you that it is one of the best. In my case, my personal favorite. The combat was enough for me to come back again and again, and Kirill's (I miss him) music was well... music to my ears. Much better than the generic holywood music some other studios provided us with.

The game got more things wrong than right, but the thing is, the things it got right, they got them done so well, I barely gave a damn about the flaws of the game. The strengths made more than up for any weaknesses.

No. There's games for everyone now. If you like older style games play those that are released as such. If you don't like newer style games....don't play them.

Not every game is just for you.

Divinity had great combat and pretty nice environments. I don't think the lack of hand-holding is anything to bleat about since it kind of forced you to stay in this one city for such a long time early on that you knew every element of it backwards anyway. I got to the point I wondered if it was ever going to go anywhere lol.

Like others have said the writing was pretty bad and the story was just bland as hell. I particularly hated the repeated conversations with random NPC's they all said the same thing but they may have fixed that for the enhanced version I haven't played it. If they improve on the writing for the sequel they might just have a true classic on their hands. Even the first one is light years better than Pillars of Eternity for the combat alone. These people don't make bad games I think I have bought nearly everything they have released so yeah I'm hopeful for a great sequel.

Guys stay on topic. It's not about reviewing the entire game mentioned in the title, it's about discussing one feature of the game, lack of quest markers.

Just saying they need to be selective on how to follow the game's footsteps. ;) Copy what they got right.

Witcher 2. You are sent into the forest, to exterminate some kind of monster. Open map, look for quest marker. There is none. Hm. Go to bookstore ingame, read about them. They like muddy waters and shadows, to kill them off for good you have to destroy their nests, for example with bombs. Their nests can be found near still waters. Go craft bombs. Wander the forest to find nests. Destroy nests. No quest marker needed. After all, you HUNT those monsters. It's your job to find them.

Next chapter: Go to King Henselt, he is in the upper camp. Open map, oh nice a questmarker. Find Henselt, no problem.

What I am trying to say is this: sometimes quest markers are good because you only need to go to a point fast, sometimes their absence adds to immersion. Quest markers don't always have to be pinpoint, either. IMO quest markers compensate for the fact that you cant ask extra questions about the quest location. It also represents the in-game characters intuition and orientation to environment. Some games do take it too far and give knowledge that would be impossible to know even within the context of the game world. that is when quest markers feel dumbed down and hand holding. Some modern games (such as Skyrim) have overused the quest marker system; to the point where the only thought process needed from the player is "walk toward arrow, get reward." Elder Scrolls fans who did not start with Oblivion or Skyrim that this quest marker feature is perhaps the most glaring indication of the casualization and "dumbing down" of the TES series. D:OS was nice refreshing experience, and took me a while to get back into the mindset of actually thinking about the problems the game gave me and ways to solve them, without having them handed to me.

Now I'll go with a Dishonored example, as it allows you to enable/disable quest markers (And in some moments I had to enable them):

What I found when playing without quest markers is that I was more aware of the environment. This is the street where Granny Raggs lives. Here's where I rescued the shopkeeper, oh, I can go from x to y to bypass the street, but also I could have skipped all this section climbing through here. You don't know where you have to go the first time you play, so you have to learn where is everything, learn the environment and its landmarks.

When playing with quest markers (due bugs and blah blah), I found myself going on autopilot. The map was just what I had to transverse to go from A to B. I didn't payed attention to particular landmarks (I didn't have the need of learning them for orientation), nor cared too much about alternate paths.

I enjoy gta for a similar reason in that when I pay little attention to quest markers, I find myself navigating by in game landmarks, which is very immersive and more fun, especially when you learn it well so when a cutscene says 'head to x place' you just take a nice drive.

Considering how rare games are nowadays that lack quest markers are this was so refreshing. The real joy of this game comes from solving puzzles and finding solutions to things through exploration and conversation. There are so many games that hold your hand and treat you like you don't have a brain and could never figure out how to do something without being told 'Go there...do that'. It was also a problem for me with FC3. You had to search for nothing. Every little thing was marked on the map. Thankfully mods addressed that bullshit, but it's a trend I'm not liking with open world games these days. You can simplify it without treating everyone as lazy morons.D:OS, does use some map markers, but there are extremely rare and they usually point to something that is relatively obvious and probably didn't need a marker in the first place. The devs said they have no interest in making this a game with quest markers on the map. D:OS can be frustrating at times but once you start playing it the way it was designed then it starts to shine and delivers so much joy! I actually feel rewarded when i achieve something in this game, and that for me at least is something of a rarity in gaming these days.

@kozio: Good point. I think Witcher 2 got the balance right. A lot of people complained about its map not being too detailed, but actually it was a good thing and it worked like a real world object,,, some piece of cloth or paper. Some quests had quest markers, others didn't. It's a good approach for AAA games.

I forgot to mention disarming traps, there are many cool traps in divinity that could kill ya if you don't watch your step and sometimes u can use these traps for killing ur enemies ....

I'm still waiting for it to go on sale enough for me to be able to afford it. Granted, I probably would have bought it already if I were more of a fan of isometric RPG's, but I never really have been and don't want to make the big money jump on something I might not enjoy (and don't believe in Steam refunds unless for a technically unplayable game).

Leave the thinking to the smart people, thanks for being honest about yourself. XD