i hate mini-maps

AdultInTheRoom

AdultInTheRoom

i picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue
Sep 11, 2013
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Just got GTA last night and two things bothered me that arent unique to this game.

1. I hate mini-maps when trying to get to a location. They highlight the route which causes me to stare at it instead of the road. Always wind up driving like Ted Kennedy on date night. Red Dead Redemption did this too, and while it wasnt as bad since im on a horse and its an open area, I am still missing a lot of the scenery that people put a lot of hard work in to. I always thought in these cases that there should be something like Fable or Forza where the path is highlighted on the road. That way its visible in the peripheral.

2. Incredibly small text. I couldnt read half the little directions they give at the opening in the upper left hand corner. Im not sure how close everyone else sits to their TV, but im probably a good 12 feet away. C looks like O, "i" looks like an "l". I think they could increase the text size, its only on the screen for a few brief moments, and even if they doubled the font size i think nobody would complain.
 
I've never had a problem with mini-maps personally. All it takes is a quick glance to know where to turn. Text size has been a huge pet peeve of mine this gen. I don't know what size TVs these guys test on, but it'd be awesome if all text size was large print size for us visually challenged folk.
 
Paths on the road are too hand-holdy to me. Having to either learn routes or glance at the mini-map adds a challenge and a bit of tension.

Missing turns is a part of the game, making up for those mistakes part of the challenge.

A nice option I guess but I wouldn't want obvious road painted paths to be standard.

Small text I can agree with. Can barely tell what button it's telling me to press.
 
you can turn off the big yellow line and just have the arrival dot show, i did that almost straight away. i still find myself fixating on the dot but at least i can take my own general path

and i agree with you in the broad sense. after all, any form of external hud is really just an element that couldn't be sufficiently worked into the game-world itself and so has to be supplied with it's own external bubble. i always appreciate a game which finds inventive ways to preserve the immersion because it is a very difficult design problem in video games — deep down (streamed at tgs a few nights ago) caught my attention in this regard because the main character used some sort of light projector to display the map (similar to dead space). always nice to see
 
I sit dead close to my TV so text size doesn't affect me, mini-maps I'm kind of used to in driving games.
 
Joon said:
you can turn off the big yellow line and just have the arrival dot show, i did that almost straight away. i still find myself fixating on the dot but at least i can take my own general path

and i agree with you in the broad sense. after all, any form of external hud is really just an element that couldn't be sufficiently worked into the game-world itself and so has to be supplied with it's own external bubble. i always appreciate a game which finds inventive ways to preserve the immersion because it is a very difficult design problem in video games — deep down (streamed at tgs a few nights ago) caught my attention in this regard because the main character used some sort of light projector to display the map (similar to dead space). always nice to see
Click to expand...

Minecraft does maps good too.
You have to press a button to bring the map up and it takes over most of the screen.
 
Dr D Wayne Love said:
Minecraft does maps good too.
You have to press a button to bring the map up and it takes over most of the screen.
Click to expand...

sounds interesting. far cry 2 had a brilliant (and similar to minecraft? don't know, haven't played it) concept in which the character literally placed a travellers map up to the screen, so it all remains in-game. a very simple but effective idea to keep the immersion
 
Joon said:
sounds interesting. far cry 2 had a brilliant (and similar to minecraft? don't know, haven't played it) concept in which the character literally placed a travellers map up to the screen, so it all remains in-game. a very simple but effective idea to keep the immersion
Click to expand...

I haven't played FC2 so I'm not sure.
This is the Minecraft map

MC_Map-627x345.png


Then when you move whilst looking at the map it's like this

minecraft%20map.png


The Minecraft way would work good in an RPG.
 
Outside missions where it's absolutely needed I try and avoid using the GPS and the mini-maps in games. Once you start making your own way there, working out the route from landmarks you remember you begin to really know the map better and better. In a lot of previous open world games I've been able to travel to most/all places just by memory. I'm still able to navigate the whole of Test Drive Unlimited's map from doing that.
 
Jason said:
Outside missions where it's absolutely needed I try and avoid using the GPS and the mini-maps in games. Once you start making your own way there, working out the route from landmarks you remember you begin to really know the map better and better. In a lot of previous open world games I've been able to travel to most/all places just by memory. I'm still able to navigate the whole of Test Drive Unlimited's map from doing that.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I did that in Brutal Legend. Only because they made their form of destination marking harder than most where they just shined a light from the sky. You had the general direction, but still had to figure out where to go. I think I'm a mixed bag. It just all depends on how interesting the world really is to me.
 
I wonder if R* ever considered doing a line on the road like Forza and other racing games do for the suggested braking line?
 
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