Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

@Octane But that was the exact intention behind the design, as far as I've gathered - they wanted players to be able to decide how to move around the world. They could easily have posted more sentries around the perimeter of Spring of Power if they wanted everyone to have to earn their way in. But they chose not to.

@gcunit Aonuma talked about approaching dungeons from different angles, that sounds pretty neat, but what I'm talking about required no strategy at all, no thinking involved. I just happened to approach it from the wrong side. It just didn't work for me.

There's no one right way to do anything in this game. There are ways that work, and there are ways that don't. This game isn't overly-designed like previous Zeldas where you have to do one exact thing in one exact place to get one exact result, even if other approaches would be sufficient. Thankfully, BotW is a game that respects player agency. Even more thankfully, 3D Zeldas that are overly restrictive by design seem like they're going to be a thing of the past.

And the climbing is the single best thing this game added to the series, and to open world exploration mechanics in general. It's incredibly liberating.

There clearly are intended ways to do things. Zora's Domain was designed so you approach it from the front. They deliberately have it raining around the cliffs surrounding that valley so its almost impossible to approach it another way.

@Dezzy The point is that, the few times Nintendo INTENDS the player to do something a certain way, they design things to ensure that the player is sort of forced in that direction. Otherwise, there's no intended way to tackle the game.

You can actually skip that and get to the Zora palace by other means. I heard there's an alternate introduction with Sidon if you do that.

Voice acted and all.

@Octane

No more limits. Climbing must stay. I flew from a mountain into Goron City without flame gear by eating the whole way there, I cant go back to having to do some fetch quest anymore.

@Meowpheel

I think you have to go all the way round to the North though.

Or maybe you can do it with Revali's Gale from the south. Either way, not at all likely in the normal scheme of things.

@Meowpheel That's... pretty cool, actually. I'm going to have to try that when I get the DLC and play on hard mode. I love that Nintendo took this into account.

I get what Octane was saying. There's technically no intended way to do anything, but I would certainly prefer solving something the non-climbing way every time. Climbing is just a matter of having enough stamina or meals, nothing more.

It's one of the many ways Botw offers underhanded solutions that make the act of solving less enjoyable, and it sets you up for this weird grass-is-greener paradox. Get somewhere by climbing? Congratulations, you just missed out on a long path of enemies, some strategy, some surprises, and maybe a Kass riddle. Did you perhaps get through the part with the enemies? Get ready to feel a bit silly when you realize that the back way was much easier.

It sounds like a contradiction, but its true. As a gamer, I want to have the best experience, but at the same time, it breaks the immersion if I have to go outside of the goals the game has set for me in order for me to seek out the best experience. Ideally, I should be constantly looking for the best and most efficient way to overcome an obstacle, but if I have to start question whether I would even enjoy taking that efficient route, then it is a failure of game design. It makes me stop feeling like a hero who's got a destiny, and more like just a gamer with a game playing in his living room.

tl;dr climbing is bad.

Shouldn't we have had a trailer for the 2nd DLC by about now? I hope it doesn't get delayed.

Although it'd be pretty interesting if they ended up effectively making a kind of 10 hour game, like with the Uncharted addon. That'd be worth a delay.

Given that it's featuring the champions, what are the odds that they'll be essentially making the past-version of Hyrule? It's mostly just the central part that's devastated. Wouldn't necessarily be too big a job.

Everything is the intended way, or no way is the intended way. BOTW is more of the latter. The game's essentially points of interest spread across a giant map. It didn't feel like game design, it felt like a procedural generated world. Getting from place A to B isn't a challenge because you can literally avoid any obstacle by... well, avoiding it. After the first few Bokoblin look-out towers, I simply avoided them, because they were pointless. The rewards weren't worth it, and there was an easier way to avoid all of it, by climbing/walking around it. The game turned into a giant memories/shrines fetch quest at point. And people complain about the Triforce hunt in the Wind Waker

Gotta agree with Octane and Nicolai on this one not that it would be a surprise. That being said, I think it's been long enough that restarting the game on hard mode might actually give a breath (of the wild) of fresh air to the game that I feel it sorely needs. Just in time for the DLC, hopefully

Do we even know when the DLC is supposed to come out? I don't recall a release date ever being shown.

@-Green- I thought it was supposed to be sometime during the holidays? Pretty sure that's what it said when they did that YouTube video about it.

It just says Holiday 2017 on the preview graphic

The Wii U eshop was saying December before pack 1 was released (now says late 2017) so maybe something like reveal at The Game Awards, release mid-December so Xenoblade 2 is given some time to itself.

I'd keep the climbing. It's the thing that makes BoTW such a liberating game.

I would however introduce restrictions in other areas to guide the gameplay experience a little. For instance I'd limit the ability to change clothing on the fly. Maybe allow it only in inns/stables. If carrying the climbing gear is a real weighty decision I have to make rather than "Ok I'm at a cliff face now, best press start change my gear. Ok I'm at the top now, time to press start and put my ancient armour back on now..." it would add layers to the strategy of the mid-late game (which I feel to be weaker than the opening hours).

It would also allow the designers to introduce more 'soft locked doors' like the rain around Zora's domain if they really wanted to guide players in a more linear fashion.

Y'wanna hear a joke?

A Breath of the Wild strategy guide.

@Tsurii Yeah!

I don't think it would actually make the game a survival mode (I'm not sure I'd like that), I just think the game as it is loses something mid-game when you become powerful enough to disregard strategy and go into almost every scenario swords swinging. The early game when you're sneakily hiding and hitting exploding barrels etc. is more compelling and the exploration is more interesting when you're limited by things like the temperature.