Current Events > Does a video game telling you where to go count as ''hand-holding?''

(+) Yeah! (+)

IMO It's not handholding because it doesn't affect the difficulty of the game. All it does is prevent wasted time from wandering around trying to trigger the next cutscene or whatever
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OP loves the Bioshock arrow.
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It depends. If a game constantly needs to tell you what to do next, it's a poorly designed game, IMO.

Give the player overall objectives. Mark a destination on their map if the game isn't linear or straight forward. But don't treat them like idiots and point out every single next step.
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As I understand it, having objectives at all is hand holding.
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It's the worst kind of hand holding

The modern "Skyrim arrow" is a clumsy compromise where the player is given the illusion of an open, breathing world when in reality it is just many, many linear paths stacked on top of each other and tangled together like wires.

Breath of the Wild did things really well imo. Occasionally you were given a yellow marker on the map early on or for Divine Beast locations but for the most part you just figured it out and it works because the game is well designed and things are where they naturally should be. The military leader is in the barracks. The princess is in the palace. The guy you need to meet is at the place you were told he's at. You can turn off the mini map on that game and it doesn't hurt the experience a single bit. Also, those indicators make sense in the context of the world unlike the Dragonborn having an internal GPS.

In fact I really love Nintendo's recent picture stuff. Discovering secrets through context of pictures/symbols is really fun.
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i dont like when super linear games give arrows
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TheMarthKoopa posted...

It's the worst kind of hand holding

You think it's worse than one-button-press = 50 kills?
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its not as bad a hand-hold as the Arkham fight play is

that's for sure
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depends on the focus of the game

if it's a type of game where finding where to go next is part of the design (metroid, zelda, dark souls I guess) then I would consider it handholding. But if it's like, a combat/action game that's not intended to have any confusion over where to go next it's just a valid (albeit lazy because there are other more elegant ways to indicate destination) part of the design
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yes

good game design should have the player able to figure out where they are going. a floating arrow or breadcrumb trail or w/e is just handholding stuff for ppl that want to play games on autopilot
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Yeah.
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Yeah, it's hand holding. But I appreciate it in open world games. It's a little bit insulting when they leave you an actual bread crumb trail like in Witcher 3, but I'd be lost without it.
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If anything, objective markers are a very useful tool for knowing where not to go, if one's intent is to wander around.

Questionmarktarius posted...

If anything, objective markers are a very useful tool for knowing where not to go, if one's intent is to wander around.

Interesting take, I've never actively thought of it that way (like I have "passively," in cases like right before the final boss, I know not to go there)
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