Definitive Edition = Dumbed Down Edition

[Multihog]

Problem 1:
The journal used to be written in the form of an actual believable journal, a chronological account of the character's experience and events that occurred during the journey. It didn't involve unimmersive, unrealistic step-by-step "kill the wolves", "talk to X", etc. It now feels like the player is simply being spoon-fed a series of step-by-step instructions. They've removed the bare minimum of needing to interpret a little text and replaced it with a direct "DO THIS!" The old journal was much more immersive because it was like your character was actually writing the journal.

Demonstration (also note the absence of a quest marker flag in the first screenshot's minimap): https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1501347091
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1501346967
Problem 2:
Quest markers are way more frequent now. No longer is it the case that you only get quest markers for things that the NPCs explicitly tell you they're marking on your map. No, now they've reduced it to the game simply linking a marker to each item on your step-to-step journal. This is extremely damaging to immersion. The old system was believable because every marker was there due to an actual character in the game world having marked the location to the map. There was no "meta" information. This is no longer the case.

Demonstration:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1501356424
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1501356554
Why did this need to be "fixed"? Elodi clearly tells the player to follow her. There was absolutely no reason to attach a real-time updating quest marker onto her (red flag on the minimap). It's insulting to the player's intelligence. Do the devs really think players are incapable of following a slowly walking target that just explicitly told them to follow her? It can't, or at the very least shouldn't, be too much asked from the player to pay a sliver of attention.

Why not let players choose between the old and new systems? Not even the added quest markers can be turned off. Clearly, the "Definitive Edition" is a misnomer because, depending on tastes, it forces a trade-off instead of being an unequivocal upgrade. Easy-To-Digest Edition would describe it more aptly.

[Zunnoab #931]

You don't have to use the waypoints. Look in your options. You can even toggle them on/off in the journal IIRC.

[Multihog]

Originally posted by Zunnoab #931:

You don't have to use the waypoints. Look in your options. You can even toggle them on/off in the journal IIRC.

I can find no such option.

[Zunnoab #931]

My apologies if I'm wrong. I'll look. I admit I never used them much in the original because the map was still littered with them even after quests were complete. Immersion wise that does make sense they stay there since NPCs say they mark stuff on your map of course.

[Multihog]

Originally posted by Zunnoab #931:

My apologies if I'm wrong. I'll look. I admit I never used them much in the original because the map was still littered with them even after quests were complete. Immersion wise that does make sense they stay there since NPCs say they mark stuff on your map of course.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1501396706
It would be under User Interface for sure if it existed.

The devs don't care about immersion and sense of player agency and world at all, it seems. I guess they got it right the first time around by accident. Either that, or some B-team that has its priorities misplaced developed the Definitive Edition.

[Kitten Food]

Theres always something wrong according to 'someone'. Good grief. This hardly counts as 'dumbing down' the game in any form of use of that term.

[Multihog]

Originally posted by Kitten Food:

Theres always something wrong according to 'someone'. Good grief. This hardly counts as 'dumbing down' the game in any form of use of that term.

Oh, really? That's funny because these examples on display here are the central components of a dumbed down game: step-by-step task lists and all-encompassing markers. It's still not as bad as The Witcher 3 for example, because the game doesn't spoil everything, but the direction they took here was uncalled for and hurt the game more than it improved.

[Zunnoab #931]

Interesting the interface looks totally different with a controller, even for the options. I'm using a PS4 controller I bought for my PC.

Disabling the markers you can't do and I was mistaken there, but you can turn off the active quest tracking. I'm not sure if it turns on automatically.

Edit: wrong url

Does a similar track quest toggle appear for you? Or is that off for you and that just makes it even worse? (Curiously the trackpad icon I have there does nothing, perhaps since I'm not out of Fort Joy yet.) I'm curious about the keyboard controls now so I'll look myself too. (Even in the original I used the controller most of the time.)

[Zunnoab #931]

Here's the screenshot I meant to link to:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1501405291

[Finrod]

In my opinion, the more people play a c-rpg game with pure turn combat the better.
Many people complained about the journal not being helpful to complete quest, forcing to look at walkthroughs.
Also, usually console people are not as used as PC gamers, to this kind of journals that don't help much.
And the game is still a long game. Having clear indications is more respectful of your free time.

[Multihog]

Originally posted by Finrod:

In my opinion, the more people play a c-rpg game with pure turn combat the better.
Many people complained about the journal not being helpful to complete quest, forcing to look at walkthroughs.

In other words, they're catering to people with the attention span of a goldfish. The original journal was very functional and helpful if you were capable of somewhat understanding written text. I can't even begin to fathom how these people are capable of following dialogue if the journal—with which there was nothing wrong—was too much. Maybe they aren't, and that's why they need the step-by-step instructions.

The journal in Baldur's Gate, for example, works the same way, without quest markers, yet I don't hear people complaining that they "need walkthroughs".

Sadly, Larian has hurt their product in a big way just to appease the masses that very well might've been just a vocal minority.

[darkflame]

Personally I don't understand the new journal, like how is the information organized? It seems buggy too, like the text turns green and entries light-up even though nothing new was added... the old journal was alot more intuitive because it was chronological.. I don't really understand what they were aiming for with this change...

[Mattee]

I kind of agree with you but in my opinion the change is good. Having a clearer objective is always a better option I think. They don't cross the line and tell you literally where to go with everything. Play through it all and you'll see.

[Zunnoab #931]

Okay I found a way to mitigate this, but you can't do it for all quests:
In your journal set every quest you can to inactive (it has to be the root of the quest not the individual stages). Then make sure "show inactive" isn't checked and make sure you haven't selected anything to track on the map. I tested with the Yarrow quest and it still updated even when marked inactive.

I couldn't hide Ifan's (my avatar) quest, but I could hide everything else thus far. Seeing both interfaces I don't even see the option to mark quests inactive in the controller interface. I thought they were supposed to have eliminated UI-specific features? Disappointing if it's actually just not there and not simply a misunderstanding on my part.

Originally posted by Multihog:

Originally posted by Finrod:

In my opinion, the more people play a c-rpg game with pure turn combat the better.
Many people complained about the journal not being helpful to complete quest, forcing to look at walkthroughs.

In other words, they're catering to people with the attention span of a goldfish. The original journal was very functional and helpful if you were capable of somewhat understanding written text. I can't even begin to fathom how these people are capable of following dialogue if the journal—with which there was nothing wrong—was too much. Maybe they aren't, and that's why they need the step-by-step instructions.

The journal in Baldur's Gate, for example, works the same way, without quest markers, yet I don't hear people complaining that they "need walkthroughs".

Sadly, they've hurt their product in a big way just to appease the masses.

Spewing out insults at people who may disagree with you solves nothing nor does it make you superior in any way. Journal complaints were very common before. This reminds me of the Morrowind vs. Oblivion/Skyrim thing where even some fans of Morrowind considered some quests poorly explained rather than elegantly immersive.

[Multihog]

Originally posted by Zunnoab #931:

Okay I found a way to mitigate this, but you can't do it for all quests:
In your journal set every quest you can to inactive (it has to be the root of the quest not the individual stages). Then make sure "show inactive" isn't checked and make sure you haven't selected anything to track on the map. I tested with the Yarrow quest and it still updated even when marked inactive.

I couldn't hide Ifan's (my avatar) quest, but I could hide everything else thus far. Seeing both interfaces I don't even see the option to mark quests inactive in the controller interface. I thought they were supposed to have eliminated UI-specific features? Disappointing if it's actually just not there and not simply a misunderstanding on my part.

Eh, this doesn't remove the root of the problem, and it's a silly, non-designed, workaround that requires micromanaging your quests, anyway. On top of that, then I don't even get the markers that the vanilla game had, which were completely fine because they were marked by NPCs and static.

This is a discussion on the changes. I'm not asking you how to do something here.

[Zunnoab #931]

I gave you a workaround I had no idea if you knew about. I can see trying to help wasn't worth the effort with that attitude. That was a waste of 10 minutes.