Sensuki's Suggestions #010: Fog of War

[Sedrefilos]

Completely black when entering a new area. Reveal everything within line of sight (objects block line of sight). Revealed areas that are not in LOS are grayed.

Tbh, I can't believe in 2014 fogs of war are still an issue.

[Grotesque]

I totally agree with the OP.

Reasons why this type of sight limitation would enhance gameplay experience (not ordered by importance):

 

*common sense - see as far as your eyes are able (no X-ray vision to see behind a wall/door)

     Are you a bad-ass wizard and want to check out a room from a safe distance? use an out of combat spell (as I understand the game is lacking in this area)

 

*sense of exploration - a true sense of exploration is achieved by elements of the beautiful 2D map not being in your face from the start. The map and its design can induce a sense of awe and wonder progressively, always keeping the player's interests at high level and inducing a level of curiosity like "I wonder whats behind that door/wall"

 

*sense of suspense/dread -  fear of the unknown is the most powerful thing and will never be topped by any villain/antithetic  design

 

Here I have a link with a game which could help for inspiration in this area:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3u8M3Frz5E

[Mayama]

I totaly agree BUT I really hated those black areas on BG maps that you couldnt explore.

[Fiebras]

I agree that completely unobstructed LoS takes away some of the mystery of revealing a map. Im not sure how hard or time consuming it would be at this point to add LoS-block to dungeon walls, natural formations and the like. It might be worth it to no do it and focus on more pressing matters (whatever they may be). Being able to see a pack of cultists through the wall is definately broken though. Not to mention it kinda ruins the dungeon crawl discovery experience.

 

On the subject of Fog of War though it seems to be a rather personal taste.

You could always have a checkbox or slider to determine if you want to see the areas you explored already clearly or with visible fog of war (either ala IE with the gray mist or some new, prettier way)

 

Or have a checkbox that leaves explored out-door areas with the invisible fog of war to see those pretty landscapes but leave in-door/dungeon fog of war always vissible (IE transparent grey or something prettier). My main issue with IE fog of war is that everything except your inmediate surroundings just blended into a grey dull soup as oposed to feeling atmospheric. But thats just my subjective opinion.

[BillyCorgan]

Totally agree with you ! 
No Obsidian reaction to this ?

[Sensuki]

Not yet

[Adam Brennecke]

We still have a lot of work left on fog of war. We recently reduced the maximum view distance, and we still plan on revisiting proper line of sight. It's a very difficult problem, and our first solution didn't work out the way I expected. We took it out because it was causing more issues than I would have hoped for. 

[Sensuki]

No worries Adam, it does sound tricky! Hope you can solve it before the end.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

Here I have a link with a game which could help for inspiration in this area:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3u8M3Frz5E

 

I find that quite distracting. I'd rather an area keep cleared while continuing to explore like it was in the IE games.

 

And the fog of war was a concern for me early in development. How it is now in the beta promotes meta-gaming with seeing enemies in the distance, around corners and through walls when you shouldn't be able to.

[redneckdevil]

Tyvm!!! I knew, i KNEW there was something but i couldnt quite put my finger on it.

I really hope they fix FOW because it is something that small but very important. I remember in pnp games where i woukd have a map out, the players had a hard time not metagaming because they could see the exit and knew where it was and coukd quickly explore the whole area because they already knew where they wanted and could go.

Then when i started putting paper over the map and would uncover each sheet as they went along, their playstyle and rileplay changed from something so simple and little.

 

So ues please bring/fix FOW.

[Grotesque]

There are 2 concepts in gaming.

 

Shroud of war  and fog of war. There are 2 distinctive concepts.

 

One is completely opaque, the other lets you see already explored map features but not NPCs, enemies etc.

[Ineth]

No, I totally disagree with this. One of my main complaints with IE was the horrific fog of war that completely obscured the beautfiul maps. I much prefer the fog of war to be invisible, i.e. you can see structures, statues, etc all over the entire map, but items, monsters, NPCs etc are only revealed one you have LoS and come into a certain distance.

 

That completely kills exploration.

 

Showing off beautiful background art is good, but shouldn't take top priority.

PoE is supposed to be a game, not an art show.