Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

@Eric258 And it's so detrimental when you parry too early, because the game really punishes you for it by dealing maximum damage with any small hit you take while you're vulnerable. Any failed parry against a savage Lynel is enough to turn Link with full hearts to Link with half a heart (if you're like me and never upgrade any of your clothing).

@Tsurii are you another cat horder thats house smells like ammonia? lol

@ReeLongbow What kind of stuff are you trying to dodge with backflips, spear thrusts? Projectiles? Timing isn't the only factor in triggering flurries, you have to actually use the correct dodge to completely avoid the attack (dodges grant no invincibility) or you'll just get hit regardless of your timing. Use backflips for wide swings and side hops for the rest.

@meleebrawler its not my timing i am talking about, half the time it won't even do the backflip animation, it will just do a normal hop but backwards which really gets me nailed. I have no trouble with perfect blocks from shields though.. weird

@ReeLongbow Perhaps it's an issue with your ZL trigger (lock-on) then? You have to be holding that and in sidestep/ZL-targetting mode for the special hops to occur.

Okay, so I've seen some people (not necessarily here) calling this game empty, and I really disagree. I almost always find something to climb, secrets to snuff out, chests to fight for, enemies to kill, NPCs to interact with, shrines to discover and solve, and hazards to avoid. I have rarely had a long duration where I'm just walking through an empty space.

Does anyone else feel that way? Maybe I have a different definition of empty.

@BraveSonic i always feel that way. The game is really full of things to do, the last thing you can say about it is empty

@Eric258 Funny you would say that, I never saw any cats in TP, but that one annoying cat in SS.
Tbh I don't miss cats in Botw at all, that thought never even crossed my mind. ^^

@FGPackers Right? I see things everywhere I go. Animals to hunt, enemies to fight, quests to carry out, not to mention all of the memories and the compendium to fill out. There's just so much there that I can't see where the "empty" claim is coming from.

@BraveSonic I guess you haven't played a lot of other open world games...

Breath of the wild has a nice balance I think and isn't a mess like a lot of other open world games.

Octane, you're trying too hard lately, man.

@rallydefault BOTW is pretty empty in certain areas. Problem is that people take it as a negative thing. Ever played Shadow of the Colossus? That game used 'emptiness' in a brilliant way. I think BOTW is using it in a similar way, and I'm not complaining about it. The emptiness focuses your attention to the interesting parts of the game. Look around you, there's always at least a dozen of interesting things to see, no matter where you stand. This is partly due to its clever use of emptiness. So when I say it's empty (in certain areas), that's not necessarily a bad thing. However, on the other hand that doesn't mean that every single part is brimming with content either.

@Octane If every part was brimming with comtent it would be made by Ubisoft.

The map would be flooded with icons.

When I find a spot where its empty and open it means I can see far out. I can spot things I may have missed.

Even if seems empty that emptiness isnt just to relax you, or even hold a few secrets. Its for you to take in fhe world and plan.

@BLP_Software That's what I love about BotW. The map isn't flooded with icons. It lets you have a good glimpse of your surroundings, and doesn't overwhelm you. All of the icons are relegated to the larger map when pressing -. As you said, any emptiness can be used to plan for when you run into a tough enemy. For instance, when I raided a moblin camp with like four-five hearts of health, there were strong moblins and I got wrecked in matter of seconds from just running in. After I died, I used the nearby empty cliffside to plan a strategy to attack the moblins with arrows from another cliff they couldn't reach, and I killed them all. When a world is too filled, you have less room as a player to use that space for your own benefits.

@meleebrawler thats whats weird, i do hold it down and half the time i will get a backflip and half the time it will just hop backwards which is bad lol

BOTW empty? Have you played Final Fantasy 14 A Realm Reborn? Talk about empty, that game has no hidden dungeons, no hidden treasure you will stumble across, no awesome sword you will find like the flame sword on that tree stump. FF is just a big empty world with no exploration, everything cookie cutter and planned out for you to go, cant climb or do anything, super linear game. BOTW is like if skyrim, dragons dogma, and dragon quest fused together.

The world is pretty empty in a lot of areas, especially compared to a game like Skyrim which has locations and Easter eggs and little hidden stuff all over the map. I don't really mind the emptiness too much, though. There is still plenty of stuff to find and do, and the size of the map spaces everything out and makes it feel more like real wilderness, which realistically wouldn't have a ton of stuff around every corner.

@KirbyTheVampire BOTW is the best RPG ive played since Dragons Dogma, infact it feels like Dragons Dogma and plays like Skyrim and looks like Dragon Quest.

Theres a multitude of places its coming from. Most of it atems from the same source. Pavlovic conditioning and learned helplessness at the hands of overbearing pr and marketing of the worst generation, ie 'Gamerbrain'. I will talk about the two main groups i usually see.

1. Assumptions and fall through logic. Most of the people making the empty claims havent even played breath of the wild. They are simply judging off the ridiculous notion that Zelda is 'open world now'. In general they dislike modern open world games, and with pretty good reason. The ubisoft design permeates the industry, as its the cheapest fastest way to crap out games yearly on an assembly line. The marketing is so strong, that even people who dont LIKE that kind of open world design actually believe the absurd narrative that its the ONLY kind of open world game. That if a game is open world it HAS to sacrifice content density for size...

And so thats as far as they think. Open world=empty zeldas open world now therefore breath of the wild is empty. Never mind the fact zelda has ALWAYS been open world. Facts dont matter.

Then there is the other end of the spectrum, those who just cant comprehend not being constantly told what to do. They've been conditioned to desire it. To these people if they arent told to do it, and therefore they didnt see it, it doesnt exist. They have been so conditioned to obey the insipid garbage rules instilled by worst generation design, that even when they are no longer confined, when they are no longer forced to do the one specific thing in the one specific way... They still play that way.

Both these groups have neither understanding nor concept of context or nuance. They will compare two completely different things as 'the same' because of a cosmetic similarity. For example, they will tell you wall jumping in mario 64, where you actually wall jump with your own skills within the rules and physics in the game, is EXACTLY the same thing as a context sensitive event where you stand in front of a wall until a flashing 'push A' prompt appears, and then, all by itself, the character performs a cinematic flashy wall jump animation.

They will argue forever that those things and similar situations are exactly the same. I used to think they being purposefully obtuse. There was simply no way anyone could be so stupid and incapable of basic formative concepts. But recent events have made me realize that I was wrong.

They arent playing dumb so they dont have to admit they were wrong or their argument poor. They just really are that stupid. And you cant fix stupid.

There is a gigantic distinction to be made here. There are areas where breath of the wild is EXTRINSICALLY empty, bit it is never, ever, EVER intrinsically empty.

Skyrim, or really the elder scrolls and all modern open world games since the seventh gen, are ALL almost completely intrinsically empty, they generate a map, and vomit the little event flags over the top of the generated world. If you dont activate the event, it doesnt exist in the world. We called it key jingle design before the seventh gen, and it was generally mocked quite thouroghly. It was like making music without rests. Pure cacophony. Design noise. You activate your event, and you follow the arrow on your map, which will take you the only there is to go, and you do the thing that is exactly the same as the last 20 things you just did, but with a different cutscene and explanation attached to it.

Even in areas without an extrinsic area or event in zelda, your bucket is overflowing with intrinsic options. There is wildlife and fauna constantly underfoot. Do you go hunting and gathering to replenish your ingredient supply? Do you start a fire to roast some of your spoils for immediate use? Do you cut down a tree and see if you can nail that group of bokoblins a mile away for giggles? Oh, it started raining and the land is flooding... Do you start using cryonis to star flipping over old broken gaurdiens for easy extra ancient loot? Oh, someone is running up to a nearby overhang to get out of the rain. Do you barter with them? They give better deals in poor weather, you can make a nice profit off the extra spoils you just hunted.

The rain has stopped and they set off again. Do you follow them, they always go somewhere, might be a place you didnt know about, and stuff always happens to them on the way.

You look around, because unlike in extrinsically focused games, thats actually part of the gameplay in this zelda. And see four points of interest. And about half a dozen ways to get to each one.

You pick the downhill one, and start sheild surfing, and find out this 'large empty space' was actually specifically designed to be a rad sheildboarding run, that puts 1080 to shame.

You find throughout the subsequent hours of the game that you actually completed about half a dozen sidequests during your time through the empty field, as impressed npc's around the world instantly hand over their rewards. In zelda you dont need to extrinsically activate quests to do things, they always intrinsically exist and can be done. The npc's extrinsic quest giving system is just there as a way to let you know they exist.

The game is never empty, and yet you have plenty of room between extrinsic events and areas to build tension and make them rare enough thet actually have some value upon discovery. Thats the strength of intrinsic design.