this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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The only way to get rid of the yellow paint is to either make better readable levels that are less realistic like Zelda dungeons. Or make everything climbable like in Assassins Creed. But then you get an entirely different game. Unfortunately people are dumb. Developers find out during play testing that a significant percentage of players will get stuck somewhere and then they add yellow paint.
Yeah, there are a bunch of tricks to make levels readable, but yellow paint is by far the easiest.
One that you may have noticed in the past, but has become increasingly less common as "realism" has taken over graphics instead of art, is interactable doors having door handles but static ones not having them. It's a very quick way to tell the player there's nothing to do without ruining the look.
A option that is especially easy to see in FromSoft's games is leading the player with things like torches. They fit in the world, but can also work as guidance.
I really appreciate when developers actually consider the problem they're trying to solve and find something that works for them. Sadly with all the "design by committee" AAA games, they just pick the easiest, most boring, but well tested option, which is how you have every game with yellow paint. It does have a purpose and it almost always works, but there are so many more options to accomplish the same task that may work better.
yeah that's true. Better readability without destroying the realism is possible. How ever I think studios like FromSoft can get away with subtle direction pointers since their target market is seasoned gamers. While a Playstation Studio dev studio who basically makes interactive stories nowadays and markets to the masses, from new gamers to veterans, has to unfortunately use the most on the nose method to please the least experienced gamers.
This cave is not a natural formation...
This line was recorded when the entrance was more natural looking, but play testers had trouble finding it. The entrance was changed to be more obvious, but they didn't have time to rerecord the lines and it still made enough sense, so it was left.
Also, having played Bungie's previous FPS, Marathon... yeah, there's some maze-hell levels in that game. Everyone memes on Colony Ship For Sale, Cheap, but Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! was a real hell to figure out without guides. I understand wanting players to actually finish their games.
Part of the problem may very well have been the lack of contrast in a natural design. A lot of players would have been playing on old CRT displays.
I'm one of these dummies. I can't help it. I'm constantly lost in video games. Hell, I'm halfway lost most of the time outside of video games.