Whenever I see a new trailer for Horizon Zero Dawn, I mutter to myself: “please don’t suck.” Based on the 30 minutes I played this week, things are looking promising, and it’s not just the big stuff: it’s the game’s smaller details, too.
My favourite a-ha moment happened when the developers were guiding us through a tiny section of the game, similar to one seen in the game’s trailers. Compared to those, however, it felt more like a real game; the player could pop into menus, accept quests from characters, and buy items from vendors.
While the developer was picking up a piece of armour, I noticed an option for the player to “create a job.” Wondering if it was merely a piece of placeholder text, I asked the developer what that did. As it turns out, it’s going to be super useful!
How many times have you wanted to buy a new piece of equipment and been short one random piece of crafting material? It’s annoying, especially if you’re not sure where to track down what you need. In Horizon Zero Dawn, the “create a job” option will generate a quest to give you the items to buy the equipment.
Every game needs to copy this idea ASAP.
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11 responses to “Horizon Zero Dawn Has A Smart Solution To A Common Video Game Problem”
I think Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate had a solution to that problem too. You could invest one of your crafting materials to an npc and he would multiply it over time.
The MH4U one was different though. Like you said, that would let you multiply something you’d already collected. This (if I’m reading it right) would actually highlight where in the map/world you could find a missing item/material.
So like, taking the MH4U, it would create a quest which would guide you to where you collect the required materials. Which, now that I think about it, is an absurdly good idea and why has no one thought of this sooner!?
That’s nice but I’d also prefer most games having a ‘set up dispensary for things you’ve already fetch-quested for several times’
Fallout 4 dlc does this. You send out a robot to look for a resource, then a bit later you get a destination which usually has armed obstacles waiting for you.
I think I’ve seen this in some MMOs. I’m really keen for this game,
as long as the crafting is not so one-note and bland like Far Cry games, which sadly the map seems to have copied.
The gameplay trailer for this looked awesome. Really looking forward to this.
Agreed. Release date?
It’s currently March 1st next year.
Knowing which enemies to kill for a crafting part is fine and it’s good seeing games do it more often these days rather than you having to look it up online, but the real design problem is when you have to kill said enemies 500 times for that part. Make it challenging to get rare parts, sure, but relying on RNG is not challenge.
Wouldn’t it be great if, rather than highlighting which random monster might have the part/item/whatever, it actually created a quest for you… so you go somewhere, and there’s a bossfight, and the boss is guaranteed to drop what you want. And the rarer/better the thing you want, the harder the quest is. So basically you could collect components around your level and have a not-so-difficult fight, and if you tried to collect components for something too good for your current level, the boss it creates would absolutely cream you… but if you magically make it through you’re rewarded with really good gear.