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Fog of War design decisions - good or bad?


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I posted what I thought was a bug the other day regarding fog of war in the dungeon below the ruined statue in Dyrford Crossing.

Link here: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/67560-bug-fog-of-war-in-dungeon-at-dyrford-crossing/ 

 

Basically, upon entering the dungeon I could see areas around corners and through walls, including seeing enemies highlighted with their red circles rooms away. (See attached screenshots)  I had not moved into the dungeon at all in the first two shots.  I could also see the main chamber in spite of all the doors being closed.  One of the developers, NCarver, was kind enough to take the time to respond and advised that it was actually a design decision.  His response here:

Hello Dray Truoc,

 

Thank you for your feedback. This is actually a design decision that has not been completely set in stone yet, I believe. The designers wanted to try and find a way to make the party not feel so boxed in or enclosed, but while balancing obvious issues with visible enemies and objects through the walls. 

 

In traditional IE games you could not see an area that you were not in line of sight of at that time, with the exception of being able to see only the environment in areas you had previously visited.

 

I will pass this feedback onto the team and I would expect that the way party vision is handled may change somewhat over the course of the project.

 

Thank you for your support during the beta!

 

Just thought I'd get everyone's views on this?  I'd much prefer to have line-of-sight visibility, such that upon entering any new area with walls, you have to explore to discover rooms, passageways, etc.  And you should certainly never be able to see what's on the other side of a door before opening it!

 

Once you've 'discovered' an area or room, then they could revert back to a grey fog-of-war; so you can still see the room/area, but not any enemies/creatures out of line-of-sight. (Thanks Sensuki for the suggestion. I think this is also how the old IE games worked, no?)

 

Thoughts?  Do you like the current approach of having spaces/creatures visible from the get go?

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  • "Fog of War Working Incorrectly - The Fog of War is not currently blocking line of sight."

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/66764-update-84-welcome-to-the-backer-beta/

 

Reading updates hard. 

 

And I think you misread what Ncarver was trying to tell you (which I also did at first). And it seems he didn't understand what you meant. You're both talking about separate issues. 

 

Edit: I'm wrong. It seems like they agree about LOS for seeing enemies but not for environment. I agree with everyone here. LOS for everything. Anything else is silly. 

 

Edited by Bazy
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I read Nick Carver's post but they did actually SEVERELY increase the radius of the fog of war between the E3 demo and now, like it's super large.

 

I prefer Line of sight visibility. Anything else is retarded IMO.

 

One thing they could do is have the fog of war reveal geometry that has no navmesh, and then stop when it touches geometry that does, that way you can see the map at the top of a wall, but not over it, or a structure, but not beyond it etc.

 

Think I've found the topic for my next suggestion thread.

Edited by Sensuki
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Somewhere it was mentioned that they tried the current version so the party wouldn't feel boxed in when in small rooms, corridors, etc.

 

I actually like the idea that if they are in a small room they feel boxed in. Long, narrow corridors in which you only see a line ahead of you - cool. You open a door and see only a tiny room or a huge cavern - the way it should be.

 

As everyone else said before - line of sight all the way.

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Somewhere it was mentioned that they tried the current version so the party wouldn't feel boxed in when in small rooms, corridors, etc.

 

I actually like the idea that if they are in a small room they feel boxed in. Long, narrow corridors in which you only see a line ahead of you - cool. You open a door and see only a tiny room or a huge cavern - the way it should be.

 

As everyone else said before - line of sight all the way.

 

Yea. Feeling boxed in can be great for immersion. Maybe some of the devs have claustrophobia? :D

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