Growth of Movement in an Open Ended Game

News & General Discussion
1

I’m still chipping away at my diceless RPG engine and something occurred to me that may have potential issues down the line and I’d like some input on the matter.

From day one I’ve been very interested in having the player slowly unlock various modes of movement connected with various perks and abilities. I know I’m going straight into scope overkill, but I still want to dream big.

Some of the modes of movement that I’m considering are:

-Double Jump (via perk for Air Magic)

-Blink Dash (via perk for Air Magic)

-Flight, think jetpack from Tribes (skill for Air Magic)

-Water Walk (via perk for Water Magic)

-Water Form, moving through water is faster than sprinting and the player can launch out of water. (perk for Water Magic)

-Seismic Launch (skill for Earth Magic)

-Plan Shift, can walk through limbo untouched by non-undead enemies (skill for Fire Magic)

-Haste (Skill for Fire Magic)

-Wall Run (via perk for Agility)

-Grappling Hook (skill for Agility)

-Nimble, run in all directions at the same speed (perk for Agility)

-Climb (Perk for Agility)

-Poise (Stronger players can push through enemies)

-Mounts (Situational and quest based)

-And also perks for pacifying creatures, insects, and undead.

As you can see that’s a ton of movement abilities, and I love the idea of the players gradually becoming liberated.

BUT, at what point does this ruin exploration?

I mean, TeS sort of ruins exploration at the end by allowing players to teleport around at the end, but people still love it.

All of these skills and perks are split up around the skill wheel, so having a all of them will take a lot of time. I’m hoping that may pad out the experience and stop the game from being cheapened.

Or worse, I worry that players will feel like they’re trudging through mud without these abilities and perks.

I remember that running speed felt EXTREMELY punitive in Morrowind and in Oblivion.

What sort of pitfalls do you foresee in allowing players to gradually being given more and more mobility?

How would you balance it?

Do you think revisiting areas to find new things that become obtainable would work in an open world game, or would it drive you nuts having to leave stuff behind then come back for them?

What if out of reach items were non-consequential, like only have them random chests?

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When you have things that are far out of reach that you’ll need to come back for, you have to make sure that the location is extremely memorable.

For example: You are perfectly capable of stumbling into this room very early on in the game Super Metroid. You can’t get up there though without high jump boots, or a tricky wall jump that hasn’t been taught to you yet.

Having areas blocked off by things that require items is a common thing in metroidvania games, so I imagine it’s no different in RPGs. In Breath of the Wild, there is a ton of stuff just out of reach at the start of the game. You could probably look at BotW’s level design because the movement mechanics sound very similar. In that game you have the ability to blast yourself into the air, fly to an extend, climb, dash, mount…

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Well, that’s my hang up.

I want the player to be able to progress through the game without any movement perks or abilities.

I just don’t know what will break the game and the fun.

I suppose the important thing is to make sure they are always vulnerable

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I would set up all the movement types and set limits on how many you have and then have areas with different amounts of movements required.
For instance, let’s take Metroid prime as an example.
All the modes of movement stack and so your only limit is the amount you have. I personally despise this because your progress limits your progress… not anything else. You won’t reach new heights through ingenuity.

In super mario sunshine, the genius of the mobility is that you have 3 modes: floating, rocket and high speed. They all exclude each other but offer perks. Since there are only 3, it’s not a bad deal to be able to hold only 1.

So to recap: easy access to the mobilities but limited amounts of mobilities at once. This helps the player either try their own way or go get the key to it.

What you should watch out for though is degenerate modes and overpowered modes.
Flight is a big no-no in platforming since it kinda gets around the idea of platforming.

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Perhaps at key points you could gift the player ability points and recommend they purchase a specific movement ability. It’s still up to them, but if they choose otherwise, they’ll have to take the long way around.
The alternate route could also have more/stronger enemies, so if they prefer combat, they can brute force their way around the lake, rather than running across it.

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Well, many of those seem to have nothing to do with exploration. How do Haste and Nimble impact my exploration ability?

To me, “exploration” = “being able to reach new places”. When you first start a game it’s all “exploration” because everywhere is new. After that, to me the question is how can your abilities:

  • give access to new areas,
  • unlock new parts of previous areas,
  • or somehow make old areas new again?

I think that being able to see places early on which I can’t access yet is a great way to give some foreshadowing and build some anticipation in games. This could be locked off areas of a map, or it could be places in levels which you can see but not access, or it could be done by the level of danger, or directly giving players keys, or various other ways.

The Metroid example above is a great one. Players who see that know that they’ll be able to get up there later, which develops certain expectations without providing any detail. In other words, it encourages curiosity in two ways, simultaneously. 1: That door is clearly a bit important, so I wonder what’s behind it? 2: I wonder how I’ll be able to get up there.

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