I've been thinking about how the zoom works in the game and when you can zoom in and out.
I think it'd be really cool to change the zoom mechanics, as well as fog of war mechanics, to sort of be designed around simulating the character's awareness of their surroundings.
When you're in combat, you SHOULD be locked to a certain zoom distance both for immersion and game balance design reason. In terms of game balance it helps keep the player at a specific distance from the combat so they can see what's going on in enough detail for it to look cool and be fun but also get a decent view of their surroundings. If you could zoom out beyond a set maximum, then the optimal playstyle would be to always be maximally zoomed out, which wouldn't look fun but a skilled player could do it. Games should be designed to force fun play. In terms of immersion, you're focusing on the fight and as such you're only expanding your awareness to the minimum that you need to prevent getting hit in the back.
When you're in exploration mode, your default awareness should be set quite wide, since you're looking around. When you click on an object or on a location with your mouse, the camera could fly over to it and zoom in a bit, as if you're focusing on it and trying to get a better look... maybe even increasing your fog of war range (if they implement such a max range to your vision). When you grab an object it could zoom in on it to give you a better view.
This concept of a sort of dynamic zoom camera would also work well and naturally with the concepts that are being discussed with the potential new inventory system which has no paperdoll/inventory menu and allows you to alter your character's equipment directly in game.
These are just some starting ideas, I'd love to hear what people think about them.
I think it'd be really cool to change the zoom mechanics, as well as fog of war mechanics, to sort of be designed around simulating the character's awareness of their surroundings.
When you're in combat, you SHOULD be locked to a certain zoom distance both for immersion and game balance design reason. In terms of game balance it helps keep the player at a specific distance from the combat so they can see what's going on in enough detail for it to look cool and be fun but also get a decent view of their surroundings. If you could zoom out beyond a set maximum, then the optimal playstyle would be to always be maximally zoomed out, which wouldn't look fun but a skilled player could do it. Games should be designed to force fun play. In terms of immersion, you're focusing on the fight and as such you're only expanding your awareness to the minimum that you need to prevent getting hit in the back.
When you're in exploration mode, your default awareness should be set quite wide, since you're looking around. When you click on an object or on a location with your mouse, the camera could fly over to it and zoom in a bit, as if you're focusing on it and trying to get a better look... maybe even increasing your fog of war range (if they implement such a max range to your vision). When you grab an object it could zoom in on it to give you a better view.
This concept of a sort of dynamic zoom camera would also work well and naturally with the concepts that are being discussed with the potential new inventory system which has no paperdoll/inventory menu and allows you to alter your character's equipment directly in game.
These are just some starting ideas, I'd love to hear what people think about them.
