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Quest markers, stupid, popamole questmarkers

Do you use questmarkes in The Witchening 3?

  • Yes, all the time (popamole)

    Votes: 25 45.5%
  • Never (I'm old school dawg)

    Votes: 14 25.5%
  • Sometimes I switch them on, but I try to avoid it

    Votes: 16 29.1%

  • Total voters
    55

Perkel

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Perkel And how did you fare with the hidden areas, aka areas with question marks? I turned them off on the main map, and try to find as much as possible as my own, but when I decide to move on to the next area, I turn them back on and use the map to find the remaining few.

I don't use question marks completely.

Out of sight out of mind as they say. If i will start to explore finding something without question marks is way better than fallowing question marks to obvious hidden chest or something.

Due to share scale of game when i was reaching 20h i also stopped getting new sidequsets quests from people even if they would call on me on street.
 

J_C

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Perkel And how did you fare with the hidden areas, aka areas with question marks? I turned them off on the main map, and try to find as much as possible as my own, but when I decide to move on to the next area, I turn them back on and use the map to find the remaining few.

I don't use question marks completely.

Out of sight out of mind as they say. If i will start to explore finding something without question marks is way better than fallowing question marks to obvious hidden chest or something.
That's a good point. :) I have to surpress my OCD I developed, because in open world games, it will eat up your time a lot.
 
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yes there were often times when i had to use map like in your Triss case. Still i didn't use minimap which has default quest pointer on.

This changes a lot how you play. Usually it is mostly problem with getting somewhere. Once you are there you more or less don't need to use map anymore.

Also talking with everybody is how we should play rpgs in first place. Novigrad ;-;..

Novigrad was where i had to use map more often because that city is filled with shiton of npcs. Thankfully quest givers often give some voice lines message that you can actually hear when you are near them something like MASTER GERALT HEY !!

Problem of talking to everyone is that there's lot's of generic useless NPCs. If you have to talk to everyone, make everyone an actual character.

And for contracts and sidequests, it's totally impossible to play them without quest marks on.
 

Perkel

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Problem of talking to everyone is that there's lot's of generic useless NPCs. If you have to talk to everyone, make everyone an actual character.

And devoid city of life ?

Imo best way to deal with that problem is to set places and various important people in logical places. Like quest givers in taverns or shops, markets temples etc.
 

Jools

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Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Insert Title Here Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
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Do we need any further proof that questmarkers are EVIL?
 
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Problem of talking to everyone is that there's lot's of generic useless NPCs. If you have to talk to everyone, make everyone an actual character.

And devoid city of life ?

Well, that is part of the problem. But there's also the lack of directions by "real" NPCs. Like a hunter asking me to follow up on a contract, but the only direction he gives is "people get lost on the woods".

One part of the solution is "the morrowind approach", which the characters would say something like "let me point the general area in your map..."

In any case, i'm ok by leaving the question marks off only, since I don't want to rush the main quest.

Another thing that would make a good balance between live city and no quest marks is adding an Npc guide, that points you to main places in the city, the important characters and where they usually hang. Or maybe vive you the option to ask generic questions to generic NPCs.
 

Carrion

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Quest markers are more or less mandatory, but I'm more interested in whether people use the minimap or not. I've been playing the game with and without it, but I can't really tell which one's better. Using the big map instead of the compass is something that I definitely prefer, as it means you'll have to play more attention to your surroundings and act less like a mindless drone, but you can't disable the quest compass without disabling the minimap, and it seems like the game was definitely designed with the latter in mind. In Novigrad, especially, it's easy to miss certain events without it (many events seem to trigger when Geralt's pretty far away), and you also can't distinguish real merchants from fake ones without talking to everyone. Quest characters often don't stand out from the crowd at all and sometimes have generic names as well, only showing up as quest characters on the (mini)map. You also need to go to the meditation screen if you want to know what time it is, as the clock is tied to the minimap. Plus, without the minimap the HUD looks kind of shitty if the active quest is visible, which is something I prefer since the game likes to change it on its own every time I finish a quest.

I wonder why they didn't include a "show quest objective on minimap" option in the HUD configuration settings, as that would improve many things.
 

DraQ

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Dude the dodge moves in TW1 were fucking disgusting (and they didn't work too)
At least your primary mode of locomotion in combat wasn't rolling around.

Maybe if rolling ate stamina vigor and blocking didn't it would have worked out better in TW2, finer granularity of combat moves (as opposed to "click to watch Geralt being awesome, repeat on orange swoosh") certainly did.
you can't disable the quest compass without disabling the minimap
There is a way around it: in your journal select a quest to track, that hasn't got a quest marker, like the one about collecting Gwent cards.
It's like Oblivion all over again.
 

Immortal

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I play with default settings for these kind of options because I don't trust developers to play test the game in any state beyond how they shipped it.

The game isn't that obnoxious about quest markers and honestly, there is so much fluff world space that is unimportant, I really need the markers to know when I am not running around in a forest filled with respawning wolves with no quest or interesting sights to see.

This game is a bad sandbox and should be played like Witcher 2, an on the rails tight narrative. The minute you go off the rails your just fighting trash monsters for no reason.
 

J_C

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The minute you go off the rails your just fighting trash monsters for no reason.
Trash mobs are usually wolfs and wild dogs, which make sense in the setting and the location. That is your reason. And you can safely avoid every trash mobs anyway.
 

Irxy

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Journal is crap, the quest text almost never updates during quest progression and sometimes even contains spoilers for later quest stages, the task list is usually non-descriptive, with stuff like "Find the dude" or "Get bones from the forest".
So I don't think it's possible to play without the quest markers comfortably, even with markers on recalling some vital information you get is often impossible via in-game means.
 

Ultra

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I wanted to because I felt like it would have improved the game immensely but the quests would need to have been designed with the expectation that players weren't going to use the mini map. They are not designed like that at all.

One small quest sticks out in my mind as an example: [EARLY GAME SPOILER] when you're trying to sneak in to the baron's place you're told there's an underground cave complex and you're given some rough directions as to where it is. This could have been a really cool little thing to search for and if it was designed without a mini map I guess the level designer would maybe place small geographic clues that you could pick up on if you're observant, shape the area so that something naturally occurring in the environment draws the players eye but makes you feel like a smarty for noticing and investigating it. Of course when they actually designed it they knew the player would just aim at the yellow circle and run forward.
I'm sure it's possible to play without the map but fuckin hell can you imagine the many quests where all you get is "Go see fucknuts at his house" and here are 6 million houses in the game? not to mention the spoilers that the journal has if you do read it.

The mini map also hurts combat because instead of having to pay attention to where enemies might be lurking or listening for them in the woods or whatever you can clearly see them as red circles so the need for situational awareness and any tension is killed. It hurts my bran to think about the man years that went in to making this enormous beautiful world and how much of it is viewed and navigated through a stupid tiny mini map.

Best I can do is turn off all the undiscovered POI.
 

cvv

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This game is a bad sandbox and should be played like Witcher 2, an on the rails tight narrative. The minute you go off the rails your just fighting trash monsters for no reason.

Dude. If there's a traditional RPG problem this game DOESN'T have it's grinding trash mobs.
 

Immortal

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This game is a bad sandbox and should be played like Witcher 2, an on the rails tight narrative. The minute you go off the rails your just fighting trash monsters for no reason.

Dude. If there's a traditional RPG problem this game DOESN'T have it's grinding trash mobs.


Out of Context / Not the point I was making but thanks for your opinion.
 

cvv

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This game is a bad sandbox and should be played like Witcher 2, an on the rails tight narrative. The minute you go off the rails your just fighting trash monsters for no reason.

Dude. If there's a traditional RPG problem this game DOESN'T have it's grinding trash mobs.


Out of Context / Not the point I was making but thanks for your opinion.

Then what was your point? Because there are hardly any trash meaningless fights to be found in this game. Which is a HUGE departure from the hallowed RPG tradition.

I suppose If you're bored stiff with the low-fantasy Witcher world, if you miss looking for ancients swords to kill evil wizards trying to take over the world, then I can see how exploration could be fucking annoying.

On the other hand whenever I hear another imbecile high-fantasy pap about dragons and wizards I go vomit in the corner. Witcher world is exactly what I wanted. What I fucking needed. And I just can't get enough of running around and soaking in the atmosphere. Especially Skellige is just oozing with the right vibe. For me W3 being open world is just perfect.
 

Immortal

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This game is a bad sandbox and should be played like Witcher 2, an on the rails tight narrative. The minute you go off the rails your just fighting trash monsters for no reason.

Dude. If there's a traditional RPG problem this game DOESN'T have it's grinding trash mobs.


Out of Context / Not the point I was making but thanks for your opinion.

Then what was your point? Because there are hardly any trash meaningless fights to be found in this game. Which is a HUGE departure from the hallowed RPG tradition.

I suppose If you're bored stiff with the low-fantasy Witcher world, if you miss looking for ancients swords to kill evil wizards trying to take over the world, then I can see how exploration could be fucking annoying.

On the other hand whenever I hear another imbecile high-fantasy pap about dragons and wizards I go vomit in the corner. Witcher world is exactly what I wanted. What I fucking needed. And I just can't get enough of running around and soaking in the atmosphere. Especially Skellige is just oozing with the right vibe. For me W3 being open world is just perfect.


I don't know if I understand Immortal's argument but I have a similar feeling that the story plays out better if you go on the rails. The open world feels somewhat disconnected from the main storyline which I feel tries to give some sense of urgency. There's a massive war going on, the Wild Hunt is on the loose and, well, everything is pretty much heading to hell on the fast lane. And yet, you can spend as much time as you like killing random Drowners and gathering plants without anything happening. The war situation doesn't change, the Hunt goes to mind its own business and so on; you can come back weeks later and everything is the same. Skyrim (since there already is a topic comparing the games) pulls the same shit - Oh no, dragons are burning everything, the eater of worlds is upon us. Feel free to fuck around for a couple of years, we can wait, no pressure.

Since we're already speaking of TES, I think Morrowind managed to do it somewhat right by not forcing that sense of urgency from the beginning of the story. There's some weird shit going on but nothing too alarming in the beginning, the PC is just some random fucker who somewhat meets the vague criterias of a vaguely worded prophecy and the game cleverly tells you to go fuck around for some time while the secret service guys sit on the situation for a bit and decide what is what.


My point was this..

Witcher 3 is a very strong game when you are Questing / Following Objectives. The game is very content rich and has some of the best quests I have seen in a game to date. The problem is when you aren't strictly completing an objective, the world becomes an empty shallow shell.

If an NPC is not important or part of a quest.. You can bet at most they will play a game of Gwent with you and at worse.. ignore your existence completely.

As for exploration..

Try this.

- Find a wide open spot on the map with no question marks to explore or quest markers pointing you there.
- Grab Roach and start running around that area for 10 minutes.
- Done?

What did you find there? Besides tree's and random monsters. Nothing. There is nothing there. No secret dungeons, no hidden quests (usually). Just an empty forest with shit to kill. There's nothing wrong with that but it's in stark contrast to Skyrim where every nook and cranny will have at least some random dungeon or cave you didn't notice before.


I remember saving a Scoi tael agent from some bandits, he told me to find him at his camp for a reward. I followed his ass for 3 miles as he crawled to his camp (it wasn't marked on the map).. Finally I reached the camp and was shocked,

Holy shit.. This camp isn't marked on the map.. Did CDProjekt Red Hide objectives that I can find?!
Wow Potato's went above and beyond I can't bel-- Oh wait... All these elves just stand around and say the exact same shit over and over.

"Greetings White Wolf".. "Greetings White Wolf....." "Greetings White Wolf"..

It was just Copy / Pasted Elf Rebel Camp #43.. The only interaction possible was the merchant I saved and followed..


tl;dr
Is Witcher a Great game? Absolutely.
Is it a strong Sandbox Game? (Imagine you finished all quests.. how much fun would you have running around exploring) No...
 

cvv

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The problem is when you aren't strictly completing an objective, the world becomes an empty shallow shell.

Well then you clearly don't like the vibee of the world. Matter of taste. But whatever, what's more important is:

I remember saving a Scoi tael agent from some bandits, he told me to find him at his camp for a reward. I followed his ass for 3 miles as he crawled to his camp (it wasn't marked on the map).

Holy shit where is the fucking camp? I saved this douche too but I before I looted some shit he was gone. I was running around the whole damn forest for like an hour but did not find his camp. Found two Scoiatael camps, one by the road and one with the horses but he wasn't in either of them. Is there a third one?
 

Surf Solar

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I plan on getting the game tomorrow. Is there a way to disable those floaty texts above enemies? Like 'Nekker Level 5' and such? That shit doesn't fly well with me.
 

J_C

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I plan on getting the game tomorrow. Is there a way to disable those floaty texts above enemies? Like 'Nekker Level 5' and such? That shit doesn't fly well with me.
You can disable their healtbar and level number, but their names will be still there as far as I know.

Edit: ah, ninjad by D_X
 

Surf Solar

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Ah, as long as it is only the name, it's ok. Showing even the level makes it appear so 'MMO-ish' - like, 'you are not supposed to be here yet, go grind another zone first'. I want to see on my own if I get my ass handed by them or not.

Thanks!
 

Immortal

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The problem is when you aren't strictly completing an objective, the world becomes an empty shallow shell.

Well then you clearly don't like the vibee of the world. Matter of taste. But whatever, what's more important is:

I remember saving a Scoi tael agent from some bandits, he told me to find him at his camp for a reward. I followed his ass for 3 miles as he crawled to his camp (it wasn't marked on the map).

Holy shit where is the fucking camp? I saved this douche too but I before I looted some shit he was gone. I was running around the whole damn forest for like an hour but did not find his camp. Found two Scoiatael camps, one by the road and one with the horses but he wasn't in either of them. Is there a third one?


It has nothing to do with the Vibe of the world.

  • Skyrim is a bad Single Player RPG but an excellent Sandbox game. You could do 0 quests and still find great time wasting things to do.

  • Witcher 3 is an amazing Single Player game with a web of CnC decisions that unfold and great side quest content that ties into the main plot. However the world is empty and sparse and without the quest content to hold it up - quickly falls apart.

It has nothing to do with High Fantasy or "Vibe of the World" - it has to do with the focus of the game's content.
If you can't understand what I am saying here.. Then I really can't help you.

Again.. I am not talking about Wolves vs Mages.. There has to be some communication break down somewhere if that's the argument you think I am making.



TL;DR If your facing the cage from the bridge to that island Head 8 O'Clock (Across the pathway)
He is standing by the tree in the middle of the camp crossing his arms and brooding.
 

norolim

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- Find a wide open spot on the map with no question marks to explore or quest markers pointing you there.
- Grab Roach and start running around that area for 10 minutes.
- Done?

What did you find there? Besides tree's and random monsters. Nothing. There is nothing there. No secret dungeons, no hidden quests (usually). Just an empty forest with shit to kill. There's nothing wrong with that but it's in stark contrast to Skyrim where every nook and cranny will have at least some random dungeon or cave you didn't notice before.
Now, I'm not getting your point. You ask us to find an empty spot on the map, run around it for 10 minutes and be surprised that it IS empty? Those question marks you want me to avoid ARE the secret dungeons and hidden quests I'm looking for. Of course I won't find anything if I avoid them. And I specifically turned off the those markers, so that I can discover shit on my own. That's how this game works and I personally appreciate it the way it is. Skyrim had a fucking "hidden" dungeon every 10 meters. You probably have a point, saying that it is a better sandbox, but that is because it is a literal sandbox. It doesn't work well as a believable fictional world - its artificial nature is very visible. And such a world wouldn't work in a story heavy game like W3.

And besides all that, is the really so much POI variety in Skyrim? I didn't play too much of it, but I was told that copypasta in this game was taken to the extreme.
 

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