Can bigger environments really provide for exciting action?
It seems from the PSO2 gameplay trailer that the environments are getting excessively huge. I feel that this was a major that I did not enjoy episode 4 and PSU. Smaller rooms can provide for faster paced action because enemies can attack from all corners in closed quarters. Bigger rooms split the action into smaller chunks, effectively reducing the pace of the action.
What do you guys think? Do you see promise in bigger environments?
Looking at the map in the screen shots and the video, the actual battlefield appears to be much, much smaller than the visual representation.
But, personally, I like smaller rooms with enemies surrounding me. The only problem with that would be that it kills the main reason to play Ranger.
Randomly generated environments yes.I don't see it being split into area's like floor or floor two or whatever,but I dunno.
Last one called,but the first one finished.
When did they say they were going to be big...? The above poster is right, the environments look bigger than they actually are. It's because the enemies come out of the background areas, which are unaccessible to the players. Seeing them come out of the forests or over the fields or whatever is a lot cooler than them just popping out of the ground, in my opinion.
It's pretty awesome to be able to see the waves of enemies coming toward you...
I like the bigger environments I'm seeing on the video. You may be right with the smaller rooms faster paced action thing but it doesn't look like that for me so far. Jump, dash, sprint actions make the action much more faster even in bigger environments and from the looks of the video it seems the enemies come at us in the size of almost an army. Again this is all speculation from a very earlier video, we'll see how it will be in the final version.
@Pillan Hmm. That's a decent point. Perhaps the environments are not going to end up being as big as Episode 4 after all. It's too early to tell from just the one area shown so far.
Hum like Pillan said, looking at the radar & map at the upper right corner, the areas are not that much bigger after all. Some parts are kinda big though. And there's the random map making too.
Considering that combat in general appears to be a lot more mobile than what we saw in PSO, I'd say it may not be as much of a problem.
That said, we can also look back at PSO and see that various areas do in fact have wide-open rooms in certain parts (such as the waterfall room in the Ruins, the room before the boss portal in Forest 2, that one oblong room on a platform over lava in Caves 1, many rooms in the Mines, etc.). These specific rooms, I would say, don't necessarily take away from the action or pacing of the game, but rather, provide a different tactical challenge than those of more compact rooms.
That is, you have to think a bit more about your approach to enemies... Or their approach to you. Case in point, dealing with Sinow Beats in a small room is a very different battle than dealing with them in an area in which they have more room to move around; they have more room for their jumps back in order to use their mirages or prepare a leaping attack, for instance, rather than just engaging in close-quarters most of the time. When they're first engaged, you have to worry about dodging a leaping attack in larger rooms, whereas smaller rooms will see them directly attacking you first.
Likewise with the Garanz - engaging them at a distance is perilous, at best, whereas in a small room you can just easily run circles around them until they kill themselves with their own missiles.
So no, I don't think the presence of large rooms will necessarily detract from gameplay. I do think it's entirely possible that these larger rooms were shown in the trailer with the intention of being able to more easily show off the faster-paced and more mobile combat gameplay of the game, though.
Why not? Areas segmented into floors/areas worked well for giving a "checkpoint" of sorts to players, so they wouldn't have to trek all the way through area 1 in order to get to where they died, should they do so without a telepipe down.Originally Posted by Corey Blue
At the same time, it nicely chunks the data the game has to manage into individual segments, preventing a single area from sprawling too much.
Don't get me wrong - I like the potential this game has for dungeon crawling into infinity, if they just let you keep going in a given area after beating "the boss." Just having designated break points and checkpoint areas is good for players, regardless of the potential for telepipes. When players get to the next floor of a dungeon, they feel accomplished (which comes with a feeling of refreshment, to many players), rather than feeling like the area is just sprawling into forever, and all you're doing is getting further and further lost in it.
ProTip: To damage your credibility, simply call any of the Phantasy Star games "massively-multiplayer."
That's actually the reason i really loved episode 4, larger areas made it feel more adventurous and I'm hoping that returns in PSO2
Yes, I DO think large environments CAN provide action & fun.
BUT
They have to do it in a smart way.
Some of the huge areas on psu got dull because your guy was so slow, or the monsters would just run away and act stupid/random. Chasing things around because someone did blowback vs lapucha was no good either. Or chasing the digging Neudaiz worms around the whole thing. Big areas in mines (as mentioned here) in PSO didn't feel so dull because sinows or garanz were coming at you and they wouldn't just flee to the edge of the board and walk into the wall like psu.
You can make big areas fun by making the people go faster. It looks big, it feels big, but you're so fast, it's not boring to go from pt A to pt B.
Smart enemy AI thats also fun (not boring like digging worms) where they're actually pretty aggressive brings the fight to you no-matter room size.
Adding 'features' to rooms like the various jump-able areas or possibly hidden things or gimmicks can spice it up (face it, ppl will be doing 'runs' and enter these areas a lot) Plus, the cut-in events should add action.
Also to keep in mind...
Anyone's only ever seen a single area of the game. HOPEfully they vary the areas too. From more open forest lands to clausterphobic tunnels in some secret base or ship! Maybe midsize rooms and hallways in a cave, or a beach with odd layouts and monsters in the water. Area variety size wise/terrain wise is also a great way to keep things entertaining. Replay value to ALL places must be really high on a game like this.
Three elements must combine: environment interesting-ness, the people's ability to navigate it, and what the monsters can do in the environment/interactions to make things fun. If any of them drops the ball, it lessens the experience. So far in the video though, the people seem much faster than ever before, the place looks to be an "ok size", and the monsters didn't act poorly. (but, hard to judge on something so short) I would still say 'looking up!'
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