When did you realize non-linearity is a meme?

when did you realize non-linearity is a meme?

it's another episode of a braindead moron trying to project his own retardation onto others

This is how I do things, so everyone must do it this way!

Brown "person" logic.

I really wish you were dead

umm actually on my 20th playthrough of Dork Souls instead of doing A-B-A-B-A I went B-B-A-B-A

By this retard logic why allow any choices in any game and instead just watch a movie?

Well you only killed this specific enemy one time so you may as well not get an option on how they die.

youtube.com/watch?v=QcLfb0PhfO0

Optional paths are dumb because a lot of dev time goes into shit people will never see.
Multiple endings is only good if I can reload the last save and see the other ones, otherwise I have to slog through the whole game again that I already just beat.
VNs are exempt from both of these because the whole game is different when you take another route.
Letting the player pick which order to do a few required things is good because they do whichever one they most want to if they get stuck somewhere they can go to a different thing and come back later.

Lazy dev fingers typed this post

yes example 2 is good because it gives the illusion of non linearity without being obnoxious like true non linearity. This has nothing to do with branching but not feeling like you're traveling in a bunch of tunnels..
You can't grasp why it's a good thing because you're a non sentient niggercattle.

This only really applies to multiplayer games, where people will figure out the most efficient route and only ever run that.

How would you feel if you didn't have breakfast this morning, mister brown skin?

Most games have linear progression systems that do not benefit in any way from non-linearity thus making non-linearity a meme for most games.

That's my take on Dark Souls 3. Taken as a single playthrough, the linearity doesn't detract from the game. I fully understand why people who like to do a dozen runs of other souls games might hate it though.

but I did have breakfast this morning

When I saw anons talking about how great it was you could play one dungeon mandatory dungeon in Ocarina of Time before another mandatory dungeon, and how that makes it like the best game in the franchise?

right, if you pretend Breath of the Wild doesn't exist yea

Immersive sims, roguelikes, roguelites and sandbox games all have real non-linearity and it's one of the big selling points of them.
It's not for everyone, but I really enjoy it, when paired with some randomness that incentivizes you to take different paths each game as you have to adapt to what the environment gives you.

and how that makes it like the best game in the franchise?

strawman award

Thank you, came here to say this.

Linear Outer Wilds would be fucking ass
The entire reason people like it is because it doesnt hold your hand all the time telling you

NO DONT GO THERE!!!

DONT DO THIS!!

THERE BE DRAGONS HERE!!!

Only a retard thinks games should be on rails and the designer should add roadblocks everywhere to "guide" the player
Yes, the player will suck the fun out of a game if you let them, but that isnt the point, exploits and bugs should be fixed, game design "should not"
If the player can interact with the world in a meaningful way, find skips and do cool stuff, it only adds to the games believability
Roadblocks and NPCs telling you "fuck you, you cant do that" take away from it.
The only great thing i can say about BOTW is the fact you can go to the castle immediately after the tutorial and end the game if you want
Someone could do that, think, wow cool and then keep playing the game
Being afraid that the player skips content is exactly the reason why modern gaming sucks ass
Devs just want to hold the players hands through out instead of letting them do what they want

i already explained to you that you are a slop enjoyer and that your opinion is irrelevant. It's a fact that BOTW was designed to appeal to mindless cattle which are the biggest segment of video game consumers as proof with franchises like COD or FIFA

pretending Breath of the Wild doesn't exist

it'll do that to you

The best structure is a combination of linear and nonlinear where there are key events that take you to the next part of the game or unlock new parts of the map, but you can explore areas and do things out of order in the meantime. Games like Ocarina of Time and Metroid Prime are structurally perfect, whereas games like Tears of the Kingdom are way too nonlinear and games like FFX are too linear. I want to get lost in the story and the world at the same time.

play games made before normies infested the hobby

Is OoT also designed to appeal to mindless cattle too? It was one of the biggest sellers in 1998-9.

If we're talking about non-linear layout, that has nothing to do with replay ability, it just means the maps are more complex, it doesn't make them worth replaying.
If we're talking about story, it never worth replaying a game to see different outcomes of story choices, because it's like 1% of content.
The only thing that can make me replay the game is different playstyles and builds, which also have to be mechanically fun.

player get linearity through self-inflicted means

Meanwhile Anon Babble was using the Quantum Ogre before vidya were even a thing and no one could decently complain about it.

It bothers me when open world games have a clear order to play the game

zeldafag calling another zeldafag a slop enjoyer

hilarious.

It was released way before gaming became acceptable and mainstream, which happened in the late 00s. Mindless cattle can't play it without a guide, let alone MM.

I don't even need you to tell me what kind of game you enjoy, I can already guess.

Gaming was already acceptable in 98, zoomer. Video game-movie adaptations were a thing, most kids played games, and adults were playing games too at that point (most teachers I knew in school played Super Mario 64 and my dad and and most of his work buddies played video games at that time). The 80s was really the last decade where playing video games was not “cool.”

Gaming was already acceptable in 98, zoomer.

You weren't there.

he pointed out the truth

everyone seething this hard

Ouch..

What if I like exploration? The bottom one is basic but still far more fun to search, loot, and kill shit in the dungeon before the boss at the end. Not to mention if the quest designer uses this to weave in some side quest(s) and/or unmarked quest(s) that wish for you to interact with shit in the off paths. Let us also not forget about having more room to give kick ass codex entries and lore. When doing the final dungeon of a game, even a well designed rpg, I think the top design is the objective correct choice to hammer in the direction to the player that your mood isn't suppose to be interrupted and the focus is resolving the plot.

I definitely was. You definitely weren’t if you think that people were still looked down on for playing video games at this point. Now, if you went to school or work and started nerding out about The Elder Scrolls or something that was more niche at the time, you’d probably be brushed aside, but simply playing games, especially The Legend of Zelda, was not strange.

it was acceptable as long as you didn't bring it up.

concession accepted.

Citadel station, home.

There are many reasons to declare open world a meme. This is not one of them.

System Shock is mostly linear too, isn't it? You just go from one level to the next

Zelda was not a deep cut for nerds only in 98. Your point about “muh mindless cattle” fails. And even in 2025, there are games that people will give you weird looks for bring up. There is always a level of niche you can reach before you’ve hit autistic nerd level.

/thread

Requires too much effort. Devs don't want to add content that most players will miss.

OP is a faggot as usual

This. Only PCfags were looked down on, and rightfully so.

Mindless cattle can't play it without a guide

Every videogames with a whole retarded " no hand holding " schtick in one way or another have a way to communicate with the player, like Cruelty Squad where the game is an fps, what else would you do beside shooting people? Same applies to older games. However, when games absolutely refuse to give players hints of what to do, no one manage to comprehend those games and i'm not talking about random modern AAA games, i'm talking about garbage asset flip games on Steam. Those trashes will leave you confused and blinded. Everyone needs a form of guidance to play games, either through subtle game design or spoonfeeding from the tutorials, no matter how smart or pretentious those gamers are.

The bottom is no non-linear. Those are just different linear paths

Whytes are brown? When has whytie ever let any other human live how they like to live?

Always skip breakfast so they can't get you with the breakfast question

Always have an apple on hand in case they try to get you to visualize one (also handy if you haven't had breakfast)

Have a story memorized with two named characters that each have one line of dialogue that involves one of the characters telling a story that includes two named characters that each have at least one line of dialogue.

Use AI sampling on your own voice outputting to bluetooth headphones so you can have an internal monologue

Eventually the sheer ubiquity of these memes is going to create NPCs that try to avoid those pitfalls.

The illusion of choice is an important element of ludography, it's like saying that you don't need to edit any of your footage and can just show the principal photography in the order that you shot it.
Creating a non-linear structure in which non-equivalent things can be acquired out of order is harder than creating a completely non-linear sprawl in which everything is equivalent.

Outer wilds is very much the exception that proves the rule. What that game does right is basically a list of what every other open world game does wrong.

Let players explore instead of leading them by the nose with quest markers

Keep exploring the open world interesting for it's own sake, not just for the sake of getting to the next plot point

Minimize the empty space between points of interest, perferably by having more points of interest but a smaller world also works

And of course, the most important

make a good game, instead of a bad one

spend a lot of devtime to give player branching options

don't spend a fraction of the devtime to add in a chapter select

Different paths are non-linear.

Anyone who thinks "you can do things in a different order=non-linear" should go play Virtua Cop. You can pick easy, normal, and hard. They're 3 different stages, and once you finish one, you can pick from the remaining 2. So you can play easy, normal, hard, or you can go hard, normal, easy, or normal, easy, hard, etc. The possibilities are endless! According to you, Virtua Cop is a very non-linear game. Aside from the fact it's on rails, of course.

in English professor

The illusion of choice is an important element of ludography

No, the illusion of choice is the game designer trying to trick the player. The problem with illusion of choice is that the second the player attempts to actually make those choices, they get shit on.

Player agency is an important element of ludography, illusion of choice is what incompetent faggots implement instead.

Not sure if you're aware anon, but that does indeed qualify as non-linear. Literally, as soon as you can change the order of gameplay events and challenges based on your choices, it's non-linear to at least some degree, that is the literal definition of non-linear. A game could be more non-linear, sure, but that's a diffrence of degree, not of definition. Sorry you had to find out this way.

the possibility to do other things, even if you never do them, enhances the experience

When did you realize that OP should shut the fuck up and play more games?

I'm sorry you're retarded. Playing a linear game in a different order does not make it non-linear.

There are degrees of linearity, to be sure. But any game with one path where the only choice is which order you want to go through the parts is linear. It's one route.

Your seething about the GOAT won't make DS2/3 any less shit anon.

astroturfing in favor of railroaded experiences so people will be more accepting of one-and-done games so they dump another 60 dollars on a new one as soon as they beat it

You can't trick me you snakes.

That's one average Daggerfall dungeon

What do you mean? I didn't have breakfast this morning.

Different paths are non-linear.

IF THEY ARE DIFFERENT PATHS and do not lead to the same destination. Non-Linearity is measurable in how much your inputs impact the outcomes.

I think the illusion of choice can refer to a few things.

A choice seems to be presented to the player, but is actually not available

The player can choose between multiple options, but those options converge rapidly until the options basically don't matter

The player appears to have agency, but what they can do is limited to what is possible in the game and choices are often only available because they were explicitly added

You seem to be referring to the first or maybe second interpretation, but there's basically no escaping that third interpretation, much like how I appear to be offering a choice here.
Is it really any worse than

astroturfing for a structureless melange so that people are more accepting of games that take 12 years to make, so they dump another 80$ on a new one as soon as they beat it

Correct opinion haver here.
Linear games are fine unless it's literally a linear line, like that one Final Fantasy game that got clowned on for being a linear corridor the entire way.
You need to break up a linear game with at least some illusion of choice. Running in a straight line is terrible exploration and gameplay. If you have to choose if you want to go left or right, you will actually stop and have to spent a second thinking and remember which choice you made, this activates at least some engagement in your brain and keeps you from being a mindless slug holding W.
Very slight deviation from a linear game goes a long way.

I'm referring to all 3, they're all cancerous and stem from delusional developers thinking they can "trick" the player.

The inverse of illusion of choice is emergent gameplay, when systems interact in ways that may not have been fully understood by the designers.

except it's actually well designed

Anon Babble in charge of not being a menstruating woman about every possible opinion

Linearity and non-linearity both have their place depending on the game or even just the sequence/level in the same game. Anyone who doesn't get that needs to play more games.

except it's actually designed by a human

ftfy

BROWNBROWNBROWNBROWN

Your mind? Broken.

Witcher 3 proved all linearfags wrong

/Thread

what is linearity even good for? like the most obvious thing you could say is a racing game, and yet Mario Kart World is going to allow you to go off track and invent your own shortcuts

what is linearity even good for?

Any scenario where giving the player too much agency would defeat the intended design.
Think about open world games like MGSV, BotW, or Elden Ring, the small camp encounters sprinkled everywhere, and how you can approach all of them from any angle, at any point in the gameplay progression.

Do you actually remember any of those encounters? Or did you find 1 broken low-risk, low-cost strategy to mindlessly spam constantly? Assuming you even interacted with the camp at all and didn't just run past it until the enemy AI gave up pursuing you.

It all becomes the same encounter.

Do you actually remember any of those encounters?

yes, I can remember my first playthrough vividly
there's even a replay you can watch if (you) forget
you are incentivised to learn and devise methods of tackling content you prefer

if the game was linear you would just be stuck with the same game forwards and backwards, no replayability in sight

Mario kart isn't letting you drive off track and make your own shortcuts, the free roam mode is seprate from the races which are the same as ever. The only notable change in the non-freeroam modes is the existence of connecting roads between the tracks, which can optionally be used as part of the race or disabled.

Fippibippi

fpbp

I'm more than a bit incredulous that you actually remember the 6 gorillion small camps of low level enemies. I personally can only vaguely remember their location and the broken strategy, though I sharply remember The Plutonia Experiment forcing me to suck it up and deal with 4 chaingunners being constantly revived by Arch-Viles hidden behind walls. But there's nothing to really argue if that's your statement on it.

if the game was linear you would just be stuck with the same game forwards and backwards, no replayability in sight

There are people going over 500 hours in action games that can be beaten in 10 hours and it isn't because the linearity weighs down on the experience.

Even better

His mind? Buck'd

even the NPCs drive off track to take all kinds of unthinkable shortcuts, because they are so far off track when they do it and Lakitu never shows up

If you found a good resource you were free to place down stamps and stickers to make note of it to return to it as needed even. If they want to replay the same game then all the power to them. I cannot imagine I would enjoy replaying BotW much if it was always the same.

The inverse of illusion of choice is emergent gameplay, when systems interact in ways that may not have been fully understood by the designers.

That's more for a sandbox or puzzle game though. Most games can't be fully constructed from emergent gameplay that results from systemic interactions. Even in those cases, most of the interactions will have been tested and designed for.
I find the inverse to be more true. If everything is completely splayed out and mostly homogeneous, then I will just comb through everything on one playthrough and never revisit it, because any subsequent playthrough will just be identical on anything but a very short timespan, because the only choice you really have is in how thoroughly you comb the map.
There's a balance in structure vs to choice to strike that enables replayability.

Like 20 years ago i guess

And it's sad to see people still falling to these lies

non-linear

Time to look up a guide and the optimal route..

It's a linear game! You can just do all the things in an any order, go to any planet at any time, solve puzzles in unintended ways, accidentally solve puzzles when you don't have the knowledge before hand, purposefully solve puzzles with good observation skills before you go to the area where the game teaches you the mechanic

But it only has 1 ending!

Linear!

That's certainly an opinion.

BotW has so much stuff to find you can do it in other replays or you can spend a couple hundred hours on one. I personally wouldn't do the latter, but hey that's just me.

It's linear. I don't know why you're so insulted by the idea that pretty much everyone who played the game had an almost identical experience to you.

If I had to play devils advocate developers rarely make being a bad guy interesting and fun in videogames.

It's the same thing in non linear corridors, some corridors are more fun or visually interesting then other corridors.

I've always considered both to be acceptable. I've always prefered linear games with optional small detours

even the illusion of choice is important for ludokino

like not every choice in bible black does anything and that's a good thing

This board genuinely has some of the lowest IQ people on the planet

Well this is probably one of the stupidest things I've read in a while.

Always have an apple on hand in case they try to get you to visualize one

Okay, you got me. That's a good one.

Having actual options makes the game more interesting it doesn't matter if I only play it once

"man i hate linear games"

uses walkthrough to get the optimal 1st playthrough

Every person I have ever talked with about the game has had a different experience than me. Yes they were similar in the fact that we were playing the same game, but I missed out on the high energy lab and got into the moon without having done giants deep, one of my friends got into the center of giants deep by accident, and one absolute madman got to the sun station manually and managed to accidentally find the DLC ship and explore it before even finishing the base game. I have no idea what you thing a linear game is, but the common definition is a game where one specific level comes linearly after the other, and within each level the order of each challenge is predetermined. So for example, you'd have Mario 1 as the most linear experience, and something like BotW very far in the non-linear side, with most games falling somewhere in the middle.

brownoid

tranny korean game

LMAO

Yeah, you have no understanding of games, which is probably why you rate a game like Outer Wilds so highly. All of these games are intensely linear, and offer no player expression.

non-linearity is not a meme
problem with modern gayming industry is that "UBISHIT OPENWORLD GOYSLOP" is "current thing" that everyone and their dog apparently loves and wants to see it in every game imaginable, otherwise it's shit and not worth trying
i.e normalfags are problem

An apple a day keep the P-zombie away.