Murderous Terrain

[Garuda.3610]

I'm just very curious, what's the idea behind that "design innovation" called "Unplayable Areas" that kill you if you enter them by accident? What is it? What it's purpose?Alright, guilty, those are rhetorical questions, but here is the real one.Why kill our characters for your inability to complete an adequate map? Just place an invisible wall, as you've done in many other areas & let us think it's meant to be that way. Better be primitive then ridiculous.

[Leviticus Lo.6178]

To which map are you describing?

Is it the absolutely enormous, pulsating vines of Mordremoth at the bottom of Verdant Brink? Beings who traverse the jungle unprepared will not only discover that these vines are massive enough to crush you between them (in the same way you could crush a gnat with a fingertip), they're also used to suck the life force out of anything they can touch (imagine swallowing a gnat for any sort of nutritional value it may have).

Do you mean the Desolation and the Sulfurous Wastes? Ever since Abaddon was sealed away by the rest of the pantheon, the cataclysmic aftermath turned the entire Crystal Sea into the Crystal Desert, and the Desolation went from a thriving, lush coastline filled with vegetation to the toxic wasteland which can kill any being who gets too close or too careless.

Perhaps it's the quicksands that swallow you whole as you struggle to escape them, or the massive lake of boiling water forever cooking by the heat of a volcano's magma?

Now, all this said, there are also plenty of areas which can end up getting missed. If there is a location that seems to be incomplete, please share which location it is, preferably with a screenshot and with any other information that you can provide.

Also, to answer your question:

It's the middle of the night, you've crash-landed into Verdant Brink, and have secured a camp location with the few survivors which have been found. You're fighting off Mordrem as you scout the area. As you journey through the jungle, you find some wreckage laying near the cliffside. Maybe you can find some survivors? Perhaps there are still some supplies?

You climb aboard the scrap metal and burning debris, hoping to find something, anything. Unfortunately, you see nothing. Even worse, you've been seen. Mordrem flood the ship, your way in blocked. There's absolutely no way you can fight your way out alive. You've also only seen 3 other people in the last 3 hours, so counting on a rescue is foolish.

Searching for an escape in the ship, you find a crack in the hull. As you dodge your way around the incoming Mordrem attacks, you start to run out of endurance as you. Just a few more steps, you jump, pull out your glider, and.. escape! Breathing a sigh of relief, you survey the area. You spot a small ledge across the ravine and turn toward it.

You glide toward the ledge, but your endurance begins to waver. Closing your glider, you begin to fall as you gather what strength you can to reach the other side. Your endurance returning to you, you pull your glider out again, knowing you'll have enough to reach the other side. As the ledge gets closer and closer, it dawns on you just how much altitude you've lost, and you realize you aren't going to make it. Your tears of joy become tears of pain as you smash your face into the rock below the ledge. With no energy and no other direction to turn, you close the glider and let yourself fall into the unholy vines below.. Praying to the 6 gods for whatever salvation you may find, you hit the vines, and..

And you just take a bit of fall damage because of the invisible terrain.

[Garuda.3610]

No, I am not talking about vines. Just try to glide out of the map in BF or one of the new maps & you will succeed in doing so, then you will get the message "You're entering unplayable area" or something like that & the next second you get killed. If you are pushed, jumped or glided into one of these, because there are no visible borders, or any kind of borders, there is no way you can get out in time. I think this is stupid.

[Llethander.3972]

OP is talking about "You are leaving the map..." areas.

The long and short of it is this: when GW2 originally launched we did not have the ability to glide nor did we have mounts allowing us to access parts of the map we were not originally intended to be able to get to. At that time there were easy ways to restrict player access to areas be it with physical walls, terrain, or other such obstructions but when an area was presented that did not allow for such an obstruction, take underwater zones as an example, they needed a means of forcing the player to remain on the map without simply blocking access with an invisible wall. This is where the "You are leaving the map..." zones came in; they forced players to stay in the intended playable space of the map boundaries without immersion-breaking invisible walls.

Fast-forward to HoT and the introduction of the gliding mechanic. Players now have the ability to travel through the air for prolonged periods of time thus allowing them to reach places that may not be intended as reachable. This creates something of a dilemma: how to restrict player access to out-of-bound areas while maintaining as much semblance of immersion as possible? There are ultimately three methods of doing so, as mentioned earlier: terrain/physical obstructions, invisible walls, or out-of-bounds warnings/actions. In areas where physical obstructions make sense we can clearly see that such options were used in most of the HoT maps so the implementation of invisible walls, while present, were kept to a minimum. The reason for this is, as before, to maintain player immersion. While an out-of-bounds warning is somewhat immersion breaking it is not nearly as notable as travelling in a direction towards open space and encountering an invisible wall barring one's path.

Fast-forward once again to current-day GW2 and, with the release of PoF, we now have mount-based movement abilities. The question of how to restrict player access to out-of-bounds areas has become something of a no-brainer as many of the existing maps were not designed with mounts in the equation. Invisible walls have, as a result, become a necessity as has been demonstrated by the plethora of invisible walls encountered in core Tyria, not counting those that obviously shouldn't exist. To my knowledge, none of the PoF maps have out-of-bounds areas, instead opting for the invisible wall approach.

tl;dr - Out-of-bounds areas were an attempt to minimize instances of immersion-breaking invisible walls. While receiving an out-of-bounds message and either being killed and forced to waypoint or being moved to the nearest waypoint may be immersion breaking in-and-of itself, it is not nearly as such as a wall of nothing blocking one's path.

[Garuda.3610]

@Llethander.3972 said:OP is talking about "You are leaving the map..." areas. >

You like to talk, aren't you? =) No offense, but I don't see the point you were trying to make with all this. Invisible walls make more sense then allowing players to enter unplayable area & then kill them, as simple as that. "Breaking the immersion" as you put it, is better then breaking players progress & desire to explore the map to the fullest or even to play.

take underwater zones as an example, they needed a means of forcing the player to remain on the map without simply blocking access with an invisible wall. This is where the "You are leaving the map..." zones came in; they forced players to stay in the intended playable space of the map boundaries without immersion-breaking invisible walls.

If they wanted to be "original", they could implement something similar to the water barrier in the air, like "strong current of wind" for example, but I still say that invisible wall is more practical. And those "death-zones" do not "force" players to stay on the map, you get a short warning & then just "bleh". Most of the situations I've got did not provide enough time for safely return. It's not clever, it does not preserve the immersion, it's just frustrating and nothing more.

The reason for this is, as before, to maintain player immersion. While an out-of-bounds warning is somewhat immersion breaking it is not nearly as notable as travelling in a direction towards open space and encountering an invisible wall barring one's path.

Again, it is VERY notable to me when I die for no good reason, it does not preserve my immersion, it shutters it & I prefer an invisible wall to meaningless death and ultimately waste of my time. If you glide into one of these "death-zones", there is no time for you to instantly change direction, & to avoid death that's precisely what you need - the ability to instantly change directions.You can also fall into a gap that is too high to jump out, and it turns to be a "death-gap", for there was no time to change a mount and escape.

To my knowledge, none of the PoF maps have out-of-bounds areas, instead opting for the invisible wall approach.

Yes, there are, the example with falling into a "death-gap" was from PoF area.

tl;dr - Out-of-bounds areas were an attempt to minimize instances of immersion-breaking invisible walls. While receiving an out-of-bounds message and either being killed and forced to waypoint or being moved to the nearest waypoint may be immersion breaking in-and-of itself, it is not nearly as such as a wall of nothing blocking one's path.

Out-of-bounds areas failed in their attempt to preserve immersion but succeeded in destroying the common sense. Any of the options you listed are better then this nonsense. However, the invisible wall is still proves to be the best option, for it keeps you where you are at least & allows you to continue without starting all over.

[Llethander.3972]

I disagree. I loathe invisible walls as there is nothing more frustrating than thinking that an area is accessible only to be met with a whole lot of nothing blocking the path. In most cases out-of-bounds areas appear in red on the mini-map thus making it easy to distinguish from the normal playable space. It just means that one needs to check the mini-map from time to time.

@Garuda.3610 said:You like to talk, aren't you? =) No offense, but I don't see the point you were trying to make with all this.

I think it's more correct to say you didn't understand my point. Ultimately not my problem.

[Taygus.4571]

"Breaking the immersion" as you put it, is better then breaking players progress & desire to explore the map to the fullest or even to play."

How does an invisible wall differ in this point to an "out of bounds" message and needing to wp?

[Llethander.3972]

@Taygus.4571 said:

How does an invisible wall differ in this point to an "out of bounds" message and needing to wp?

One is a barrier of nothing, the other is typically explainable in some manner. In the Jungle it can be explained as "Mordremoth's influence is too strong past this point, blah blah blah" and, in Core Tyria areas, to my knowledge the only areas that tended to have out of bounds areas were underwater. This could be explained in a similar manner to WoW's fatigue mechanic, which was a system I thought worked quite nicely.

Invisible walls are just so... lazy.

"Breaking the immersion" as you put it, is better then breaking players progress & desire to explore the map to the fullest or even to play."

Once again, I disagree. An invisible wall breaks player progress and hampers the ability to "explore the map to the fullest" just as much as an out-of-bounds area. One is nothing more than a big barrier of, well... nothing. "Oh look, I can go this wa-oh, no I can't. I'm being blocked by nothing."

If someone encounters an out-of-bounds area and suddenly loses the desire to play the game then I would have to question whether or not a game with focus on exploration is the game for them.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

This is Aranimda. We had great adventures together until he flew into a kill zone while exploring. Please, think about the explorers. He did not deserve to die so young.

[BunjiKugashira.9754]

From what I have encountered, ANet uses invisible walls where possible. Only if the invisible walls fail to keep you out of the no-play-zone, does the kill warning switch in. The problem is that invisible walls can be circumvented. There are many known locations where these walls have holes or can be bypassed with some shadowstep/teleport trickery.

Sadly, with the advent of invisible walls and kill zones, the golden age of map-breaking and void-jumping has come to an end. Even the hidden/unfinished JP in caledon forest has been sealed for good.

[Llethander.3972]

@TheQuickFox.3826 said:This is Aranimda. We had great adventures together until he flew into a kill zone while exploring. Please, think about the explorers. He did not deserve to die so young.

The simple solution is, of course, to pay attention to the map boundaries whilst exploring. :P

[Garuda.3610]

@Llethander.3972 said:I disagree. I loathe invisible walls as there is nothing more frustrating than thinking that an area is accessible only to be met with a whole lot of nothing blocking the path. In most cases out-of-bounds areas appear in red on the mini-map thus making it easy to distinguish from the normal playable space. It just means that one needs to check the mini-map from time to time.>This makes no sense. You'll be thinking same thing, only instead of being pushed back, you'll be killed.And no, they do not appear in red, only in instances, so your "simplest solution" to pay attention to the map isn't a solution at all.

[Vayne.8563]

@Garuda.3610 said:

@Llethander.3972 said:I disagree. I loathe invisible walls as there is nothing more frustrating than thinking that an area is accessible only to be met with a whole lot of nothing blocking the path. In most cases out-of-bounds areas appear in red on the mini-map thus making it easy to distinguish from the normal playable space. It just means that one needs to check the mini-map from time to time.>This makes no sense. You'll be thinking same thing, only instead of being pushed back, you'll be killed.And no, they do not appear in red, only in instances, so your "simplest solution" to pay attention to the map isn't a solution at all.

I explore all the time and I maybe I've run into this problem twice in five years. If you can't see where the map is ending, I'm not sure what to tell you. I get close and wait for a message saying I'm too close. It's really not hard. I'm not sure why you're having trouble with it. And yes, I'd dislike invisible walls more. I dislike them immensely.

[Todd.6573]

@TheQuickFox.3826 said:This is Aranimda. We had great adventures together until he flew into a kill zone while exploring. Please, think about the explorers. He did not deserve to die so young.

I see the Eye of Janthir, more likely sacrificed for knowing too much.I smell a coverup!

[Garuda.3610]

@Vayne.8563 said:I explore all the time and I maybe I've run into this problem twice in five years. If you can't see where the map is ending, I'm not sure what to tell you. I get close and wait for a message saying I'm too close. It's really not hard. I'm not sure why you're having trouble with it. And yes, I'd dislike invisible walls more. I dislike them immensely.<

And I prefer invisible wall, that honestly tells you that you can't go somewhere, instead of this stupid trap. It should at least give more time to get out.I play for less then a year & I've lost count of how many times I've ran into this thing. I guess I explore more then you do.

[Razor.6392]

And I prefer people who don't whine over pointless things.

We can't all be pleased.

[Garuda.3610]

@Razor.6392 said:And I prefer people who don't whine over pointless things.

We can't all be pleased.

No we can't, doesn't mean we shouldn't try.And if this topic is pointless for you, don't stretch yourself replying to it.

[Cragga the Eighty Third.60]

I hate the being-killed-for-leaving-the-playable-area, too.

I died fighting Mordremoth during that part of the final mission where you have to catch an updraft and glide or die, but I went too close to the edge of the map and died anyway. I get that message around some walls and corners of VB.

If it's necessary to block the player, they should do it the same mildly annoying way they do it in the ocean. "You suddenly run into a fierce wind that blows you back." There, problem solved, and nobody had to die.