Dynamic Map and Orienteering Skill Proposal


EmotiveScissors

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Dynamic Map

    Due to the nature of the apocalypse that this game is centered around, I understand why the developers haven't added a compass. At the same time however, I feel that the lack of any map or type of map system to be a huge oversight by the developers--and misses a potentially great game-play dynamic. 

    To begin with, I'll share a personal experience to better explain my reasoning. After graduate school I moved overseas to a medium sized city in East Asia. After arriving, not yet having a cell phone or internet, I began to map out my neighborhood in the back of a notebook. I drew out the roads and the large river next to my place of work, the bridge I would need to cross to get to my apartment, a few bus stops etc. Over the following weeks the map got more and more complex as I added things to it. When I got internet I checked my home made map against Google Maps and found I had vastly mistaken scale in some places and needed to update my map. After about a month the entire page was filled in with roads, paths, alleys and other notable things. The process of creating this map gave me a huge sense of accomplishment and helped me better navigate my new home. Many of my friends were surprised that after only a few weeks in the city I could navigate it without asking for directions. It was also great to know when a taxi driver was trying to rip me off by taking me on an indirect route to my destination to increase the fare. 

    I believe that an experienced bush pilot like the protagonist in story mode would set about doing something like this immediately upon finding himself stranded in the wilderness. Not only do pilots need to be able to read maps, but they likely would be able to navigate based on geographical features. For someone living through the Apocalypse making a map would be a matter of survival. This reminds me of another experience in college talking with a few friends from Hawaii. In Hawaii, according to my friends, many people don't pay attention to road names, but instead describe how to get to places based on commonly known geographical features. "I used to live down the road from the Toys 'R Us, surf shop, by L&L." Without a compass, or any other maps, our protagonist would likely start by creating a map of what he encounters--notable features.

Orienteering Skill

    It would be great if the player started with a blank map at the beginning of the game and slowly began to map it out (not just fog of war style) as the game progressed. This could be linked with a 'Orienteering' skill in the skill menu. At level 1 orienteering you navigate mainly by large features, i.e. Big Dead Tree, Hand Shaped Rock, Broken Down Van etc, slowly adding these things to the map... obviously hand drawn. (Think of JRR Tolkien's maps from the Lord of the Rings books). The player cannot locate themselves on the map unless they pass an orientation check (similar to lighting a fire, it needs to be activated and time passes). Depending on how many known features are visible, the quicker one is able to put themselves on the map. If it is foggy or blizzard conditions there is only a 0-20% chance of locating yourself unless you are leaving a safe house. Your location would disappear from the map after 1 hour of game time or moving 200 meters.

    The Orienteering skill would improve, as would your map as you discover more of the world, roads, railways, bridges, houses etc. Maybe around level 3 or 4 or Orienteering the map would begin to add topographical features, you would begin to take note of migratory patterns of deer, rabbits etc, which would give you a check on the map to determine where they might be. Leveling up Orienteering would happen by discovering more locations and by using the check position skill successfully (like lighting fires). 

Interaction with the World (Map related Quests)

    The Dynamic map could also be updated with information found around the world, suppose you find a notebook in a logging camp, and in it talks about having lost an axe near a pond. The notebook might require an orientation skill of 3 to research, assuming you have the necessary level you can 'Research' the book or item in much the same way you would for learning new skills, which if accomplished will add a map marker to the map if enough of the hints in the text have been discovered, i.e. "I lost my axe last thursday near the pond bellow the rock outcropping that looks like a turtle; as soon as this weather clears I need to go back and find it." Well if you know where the turtle shaped rock and the pond are, then you can get the map marker on your map after researching it. Going to that location you could then use the item again to find whatever you're looking for of course using time and or a skill check. You have discovered Bob McKenzie's Trusty Axe! 

    One way to add more challenge to the map making process would be by items slowly fading from the map unless you spend time to update your map. Suppose you find the Stump Shaped Like a Dolphin, well unless you update your map, the marker will fade from your map after two days in game. 

   Updating your map at the end of the day could require 30 minutes or an hour of time, otherwise you forget some of the things you discovered for example. Of course, the higher level of orienteering, the more likely you'll be able to find hidden things, thus incentiving people to invest time in making and updating their maps. If you know you can potentially find useful items or caches of food and supplies, you are more likely to invest 30 minutes or an hour of your avatar's time per day into maintaining and updating a map, making it an interesting game feature that adds to the exploration element of the game.

Balancing

  Of course, every new system requires some balancing so that it doesn't make the game too easy, so there are things that could happen that would undo your work etc. Suppose falling in water would destroy your map in the highest difficulty, or while using the orienteering skill you can be attacked by wolves etc (its easy to get hurt when your face is stuck in a map). The most obvious way to balance this item and skill is of course time, it takes time to invest in making your map, it takes time to locate yourself on the map, you can lose progress on your map (forget where things are) if you don't spend any time on it. 

In conclusion, it might take some effort to implement the above into the Sandbox, but I think it would be a great feature that would add to the game-play and encourage exploration. 

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Implementation of in-game maps seems to have been a hot topic recently. My attitude towards them has always been that I don't want the game to be drawing maps for me: I like the idea of having to learn the environment myself, and having to remember it. After many hundreds of hours played on this game, I still get lost or disoriented in some parts of Pleasant Valley, and certainly in Timberwolf Mountain, which I've never got to know very well. If I go for a stretch without playing the game, or without visiting a certain map, I forget the layout and it takes me a while to get to grips with it again. I like this. The feeling of uncertainty about your location, and about the location of things like shelter, food resources or dangerous animals, adds to the experience and makes it more challenging and more interesting, in my view. So I'm pretty sceptical about any mechanic that automatically tells you where you are and where other stuff is.

That said, your suggestion about orientation skill and finding clues as to the location of useful items is interesting. What you describe is quite complex, though, and would be a fairly major undertaking for the developers in order to get it right. And I'd still be sceptical about whether that's worth it, to be honest. A big part of the game is the exploration - and I do think there's merit in the idea of having your exploration tracked and rewarded by the game in the form of a skill system for orienteering. I like the idea of having certain rare and important loot or tools (or caches) being hidden somewhere and their location linked to clues that you find in the more 'obvious' points of interest, and I think that could form the basis of any orienteering skill system; but I think this could be done without the automatic map-drawing? It would require a rework of how and where and how frequently loot items are programmed to spawn, so that it's more random (which I think would be a good thing, anyway), and your suggestion about linking it to wildlife movement would also require new mechanics - they don't have migratory patterns, currently!

Maps seem to be a popular idea, and your in-game journal already tells you the names of the locations you've visited - I guess it's not too much of a stretch to put that into a more visual form. But I really don't like the idea of any game system that tells you where you are automatically - I think you should have to figure this out yourself (or blunder about until you stumble across something you recognise).

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