Warning Message Before Sailing Over Edge

[Khalysto]

Sooo, I just lost everything today (sigh). I was sailing near the edge of the world when some inviso-current suddenly took hold and pulled me and my boat over the edge, ignoring wind physics. Since it appears death is unavoidable at some invisible boundary near the edge of the world, can we get some kind of warning message like, "You drift too close to oblivion" or "Sailing further would anger Odin"... i don't know, *anything* before your stuff ends up in an impossible to retrieve situation.

Edit: Though many comments say this result is 'known', it obviously wasn't known to me when set out and requiring 100% of your players to read the wiki/forum to play your game isn't fair.

I didn't sail off the edge, I was *sucked* off of the edge by a current when I got too near the edge. This game has never employed a current mechanic so expecting something like this to kick-in isn't reasonable. If the core gameplay loop is retrieving your stuff, the game should include a warning if you put yourself in a situation where 'stuff recovery' will be impossible.

[Rhapsody]

If you can't see the churning seas or the horizon suddenly no longer existing, or hear the sound of rushing water, before you turn the vessel around, it's all on you. It's not the game's fault. What kind of conditions you choose to sail in are also your own choice, as is the amount of gear and other materiel in your possession when sailing to the end of the world. Survival games are all about choices having consequences, but in this case it probably wouldn't hurt if the audio or visuals like steaming water was amped up a little bit. A warning message similar to the prompts given when events occur wouldn't exactly be out of place in this game, but it's hardly needed when other telegraphs are already available.

[Reeva!]

引用自 Rhapsody：

If you can't see the churning seas or the horizon suddenly no longer existing, or hear the sound of rushing water, before you turn the vessel around, it's all on you. It's not the game's fault. What kind of conditions you choose to sail in are also your own choice, as is the amount of gear and other materiel in your possession when sailing to the end of the world. Survival games are all about choices having consequences, but in this case it probably wouldn't hurt if the audio or visuals like steaming water was amped up a little bit. A warning message similar to the prompts given when events occur wouldn't exactly be out of place in this game, but it's hardly needed when other telegraphs are already available.

Problem is that you don't really know what that sound means until you realize what's happened, by that time you can't change course, you're going to die. In future you'll know exactly what that sound means, but it comes at the cost of either spoiling the game by looking at videos, or dying to the mechanic at least once.

An explorer wouldn't think to turn back at the sound of churning water since waterfalls don't exist in this game at all, until you fall off the edge of the world. A warning message seems like a solid idea, since Hugin constantly shows up to tell you about everything ever. Honestly seems weird that he wouldn't tell you to turn back when he told you the Black Forest is far too dangerous and worthless without first killing Elkthyr.

[Rhapsody]

引用自 Reeva!：

An explorer wouldn't think to turn back at the sound of churning water since waterfalls don't exist in this game at all, until you fall off the edge of the world.

The way I see it, that should just make the player even more wary of the situation. But sound is not the only cue and neither is it the point of no return. Everyone has a map, and the minimap cannot be turned off; if you're approaching the edge of the world carelessly, it's your own responsibility.

[Reeva!]

引用自 Rhapsody：

引用自 Reeva!：

An explorer wouldn't think to turn back at the sound of churning water since waterfalls don't exist in this game at all, until you fall off the edge of the world.

The way I see it, that should just make the player even more wary of the situation. But sound is not the only cue and neither is it the point of no return. Everyone has a map, and the minimap cannot be turned off; if you're approaching the edge of the world carelessly, it's your own responsibility.

Many people wouldn't think the game would take 5% of your stats along with every single piece of equipment and resource you have on or in your Longship because you went to the edge of the world, it seems like a place you'd have an invisible wall or something to stop you from advancing.

We've had games in the past like Witcher 3 that teleported you back to the playable area after you reached the point of no return, or an area that just had nothing to offer you.

Other games like Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag that clearly showed you a very ominous wall of particle effects that was similar to the other walls you've seen already, warning you of eminent desynchronization.

I've even played a game that just told me the wind was too strong and that my ship was being blown back so I couldn't advance, can't remember its name but it was actually a creative take on an invisible wall.

Many options exist. Falling off the map and losing your gubbins isn't exactly player-friendly when all you have to go on is an audio queue you've never heard before.

[Rhapsody]

引用自 Reeva!：

We've had games in the past like Witcher 3 that teleported you back to the playable area after you reached the point of no return, or an area that just had nothing to offer you.

Other games like Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag that clearly showed you a very ominous wall of particle effects that was similar to the other walls you've seen already, warning you of eminent desynchronization.

I've even played a game that just told me the wind was too strong and that my ship was being blown back so I couldn't advance, can't remember its name but it was actually a creative take on an invisible wall.

Naturally. But what is characteristic to many other games is that only the playable area ends, not the world itself. I don't know the cosmology of Witcher franchise well enough, but I'd suppose majority of it takes place on a planet (or sphere if you will), and that certainly goes for our own earth where AC and many other games take place.

I don't know off hand whether vikings or other ancient scandinavians believed the worlds to be round spheres or flat discs, but as I mentioned above, witnessing the sudden end of horizon or, if heading eastward, unexpectedly being able to witness Yggdrasil where it comes from[en.wikipedia.org] should give good enough impression of possibility of falling off or ending up who knows where. After all that, whether you go test the waters (pun intended) in your full gear or not is again the player's own choice.

[Reeva!]

Yeah in Witcher 3 they warned that only devils dared to cross the boundary to the other side, hence why you are teleported back. Wolves and general wildlife can cross the boundary but they die shortly after within your sight. The game implies certain death I believe, but rather than letting you face it, it turns you away to focus on more important tasks. In Witcher you don't actually lose anything though. Same with AC4. You just go back to a checkpoint.

In MC you'd never realistically reach the end of the world, unless you held down W for a few months at a time with no breaks or if you cheated.
7DtD has a similar mechanic but it uses a wall of radiation to damage you severely, rather than outright killing you, giving you ample time to change course. Even if you died in there your backpack would still be available, so if you had a vehicle you could rush to your corpse, gather your loot and head back faster.

Lore or canon isn't really an excuse to punish a player that severely for not reading up on it on Wikipedia or other websites. There's a reason lots of games choose to take a different path rather than punish you with things like falling off the edge of the world and losing everything in a survival game. There are solutions, and atm there's nothing to be gained at all from dying like this, other than knowing you can die like that. Just seems strange to go the full mile with it, it serves no purpose.

[Kage]

引用自 Reeva!：

other games don't do this

Those games do not have similar survival elements. You never lose anything when you die in AC/Witcher/..., except maybe some time because you didn't save frequently enough. You can always just try again at no great cost. Death is meaningless. In Valheim, death is meaningful. The game tells you this because (1) you lose stats, (2) you have to recover your stuff where you died, (3) there's no quicksave/quickload or earlier point in the game to go back to, unless you manipulate the files in some way.

From the very start of the game, Valheim teaches you to (1) Be very careful (2) Be prepared for any situation. Explore anything in any direction, you'll get attacked, fall to your death or drown. Every single mechanic in the game, with the exception of spawn-proofing a base, teaches you to never be comfortable in your power over the environment and mobs. Running through the black forest without a pickaxe and get stuck in terrain while trolls chase you? Die. Jumping up a mountain and 3 wolves find you just in time with 0 stamina because you jumped too much. Die. Forget to bring enough food or potions? Die. Think you can swim over to the next island, but miscalculated the distance? Die. Excited to explore a biome with mobs that have the funniest laugh ever, confident you can outrun them in your agility gear but a deathsquito one-shots you. Die. Put some defensive weaponry down but didn't realize it also targets you? Die. Overencumbered? Die. Didn't repair boat when you could? Die. See what I mean?

Now. Edge of the World. Edge. Of. The. World. What does that mean? You can clearly see it on your map. You can tell by the skybox you're nearing the edge. You can hear it. You notice there's nothing worthwhile here, because it's mostly just ocean and dead ice (or ash? didn't go south yet). Anyway, you know it's the edge of the world.

You know anything and everything in a survival game, especially when exploring new areas of the game, entails RISK. What greater risk is there than exploring the literal boundary of the world you live in? Nothing.

You have the option to at any point, build a temporary base (and if you're smart, you always take portal materials in your boat) before you risk your stats and gear.

Why? Because the game already taught you that you can lose materials forever. Metals and other heavy stuff sinks to the bottom of the ocean. You're in the ocean. You can lose stuff.

So here's the facts:

1) You're at the edge of the world.
2) Even if you don't know what it is,it is literally the 'end', so the world's edge should be considered the greatest risk. I believe OP knew this was a risk but decided to ignore his gut feeling.
3) You had every opportunity to prepare for whatever the game would throw at you, including permanently losing gear, which you are familiar with if you ever lost gear in the ocean. I'm going to assume OP either didn't learn this lesson yet, which is strange, or decided to ignore point (2).
4) Every death is a story you can tell. An experience to learn from. And if you're smart, death is an expectation. Warning the player explicitly about dangerous things defeats the whole atmosphere of the game. Don't advocate for making this game easier, I beg you.

edit: I can agree that maybe the soundscape should be a bit more ominous and/or increase the amount of serpents or something in that area. Or at least display the actual region of water that pulls you out differently and accurately. I'd have to check again to see how well that area is marked right now, I can't remember. We did what OP didn't. Made a temporary portal and stored our ♥♥♥♥, then went back to the boat to jump off the edge.

[Reeva!]

引用自 Kage：

引用自 Reeva!：

other games don't do this

Those games do not have similar survival elements. You never lose anything when you die in AC/Witcher/..., except maybe some time because you didn't save frequently enough. You can always just try again at no great cost. Death is meaningless. In Valheim, death is meaningful. The game tells you this because (1) you lose stats, (2) you have to recover your stuff where you died, (3) there's no quicksave/quickload or earlier point in the game to go back to, unless you manipulate the files in some way.

From the very start of the game, Valheim teaches you to (1) Be very careful (2) Be prepared for any situation. Explore anything in any direction, you'll get attacked, fall to your death or drown. Every single mechanic in the game, with the exception of spawn-proofing a base, teaches you to never be comfortable in your power over the environment and mobs. Running through the black forest without a pickaxe and get stuck in terrain while trolls chase you? Die. Jumping up a mountain and 3 wolves find you just in time with 0 stamina because you jumped too much. Die. Forget to bring enough food or potions? Die. Think you can swim over to the next island, but miscalculated the distance? Die. Excited to explore a biome with mobs that have the funniest laugh ever, confident you can outrun them in your agility gear but a deathsquito one-shots you. Die. Put some defensive weaponry down but didn't realize it also targets you? Die. Overencumbered? Die. Didn't repair boat when you could? Die. See what I mean?

Now. Edge of the World. Edge. Of. The. World. What does that mean? You can clearly see it on your map. You can tell by the skybox you're nearing the edge. You can hear it. You notice there's nothing worthwhile here, because it's mostly just ocean and dead ice (or ash? didn't go south yet). Anyway, you know it's the edge of the world.

You know anything and everything in a survival game, especially when exploring new areas of the game, entails RISK. What greater risk is there than exploring the literal boundary of the world you live in? Nothing.

You have the option to at any point, build a temporary base (and if you're smart, you always take portal materials in your boat) before you risk your stats and gear.

Why? Because the game already taught you that you can lose materials forever. Metals and other heavy stuff sinks to the bottom of the ocean. You're in the ocean. You can lose stuff.

So here's the facts:

1) You're at the edge of the world.
2) Even if you don't know what it is,it is literally the 'end', so the world's edge should be considered the greatest risk. I believe OP knew this was a risk but decided to ignore his gut feeling.
3) You had every opportunity to prepare for whatever the game would throw at you, including permanently losing gear, which you are familiar with if you ever lost gear in the ocean. I'm going to assume OP either didn't learn this lesson yet, which is strange, or decided to ignore point (2).
4) Every death is a story you can tell. An experience to learn from. And if you're smart, death is an expectation. Warning the player explicitly about dangerous things defeats the whole atmosphere of the game. Don't advocate for making this game easier, I beg you.

edit: I can agree that maybe the soundscape should be a bit more ominous and/or increase the amount of serpents or something in that area. Or at least display the actual region of water that pulls you out differently and accurately. I'd have to check again to see how well that area is marked right now, I can't remember. We did what OP didn't. Made a temporary portal and stored our ♥♥♥♥, then went back to the boat to jump off the edge.

Wouldn't exactly be making the game easier. The game heavily encourages exploration, yet punishes too much exploration with instant death and despawning your loot.

Games like Witcher also encourage exploration, but not once are you killed outright for doing it too much. Most you'll get is an enemy that's way too powerful to take on, in which case you can choose to run, or fight. The choice isn't made for you at that point. Your death will be tied to your skill (or lack thereof), not by an insta-death arbitrary barrier designed specifically for discouraging curiosity when you go too far.

But yeah the point stands, you'll never fall off the edge of the world if you never go there, and you'll never die to it twice if you're smart. I personally took a raft with no gear to see what it's like, died losing basically nothing except leather scraps for the sails. Frankly I knew I'd die because some friends have told me about it, they had no clue what would happen and typically veer away from spoiling things. It was an adventure, which cost them quality 3 iron gear and 100+ needle arrows, along with treasure valued at 1000+ coins stored in their longship.

Not a great experience, fun to see it for the first time but that's if you're just exploring with nothing on you, that's my playstyle but it revolves around dying to scout in a survival game, something a sparse few people decide on doing, many actually like to survive 'and' explore.

[Humpenstilzchen]

This is not the witcher. This is Valheim. In Viking mythology the world ends with a big waterfall into nothing. I think it is pretty awesome that they have implemented this and a warning would kind of defeat the point of this massive threat if you get too close.

[Reeva!]

引用自 Humpenstilzchen：

This is not the witcher. This is Valheim. In Viking mythology the world ends with a big waterfall into nothing. I think it is pretty awesome that they have implemented this and a warning would kind of defeat the point of this massive threat if you get too close.

In Witcher the world does not have an end, yet it ends in the ingame map for practical and development reasons. In other games this is the opposite, an apparently finite world in canon, but an infinite amount of ground to be covered which never ends, procedural generation.

Point is, falling off the world, sucks, and you lose all your stuff. Not asking for the game world to be infinite, just asking for a warning that goes beyond a once-off sound queue. As stated previously, it would make less sense for Hugin to Not warn you about the edge of the world, seeing as he warns you about the Black Forest being challenging, as well as giving you hints on almost everything you could want.
If you want a canon or even a sensible warning, this would be it, and it detracts from nothing.

[Rhapsody]

引用自 Reeva!：

As stated previously, it would make less sense for Hugin to Not warn you about the edge of the world, seeing as he warns you about the Black Forest being challenging, as well as giving you hints on almost everything you could want.

I was also thinking of that few moments ago. I'm not sure he would be able to land on the ship? Maybe it is possible. However, that could result in the poor messenger being dragged off the world alongside us and I'm not sure what to think of that.

And then again, people don't actually read. That same flaw of our species would also apply to any other sort of warning message. If we actually wanted to save everyone from certain doom(?) of falling off the world, we'd probably need an air siren, huge STOP-sign and probably someone to issue the players a fine for not following the presented regulations.

[Reeva!]

If Hugin slipped off the edge of the world with me, that'd be worth losing carapace armour for. As long as he stays down there, I can farm for carapace in peace, no crow to keep gawking at me in the corner of my screen because I don't wanna talk to him about dying to that boar 53 days ago.

[Khalysto]

引用自 Humpenstilzchen：

This is not the witcher. This is Valheim. In Viking mythology the world ends with a big waterfall into nothing. I think it is pretty awesome that they have implemented this and a warning would kind of defeat the point of this massive threat if you get too close.

A warning would not defeat this purpose. In fact, it would be cannon with your logic on viking mythology. In ancient maps, dragons were painted near the 'edge' so you knew there was danger there. There was an empirical warning to explorers that you risk death passing beyond this point.

So if we're going to make the argument that a flat disc world and falling off of it = adherence to viking mythos, a warning would also be just as valid.

[Khalysto]

I've read through most of the replies here and I don't see anyone addressing my core point:

The behavior of falling off of the world breaks the game's core gameplay loop: Always being able to retrieve your stuff.

Someone brought up a point that the same can happen if the biome is too hard. I reject that argument because with enough time and effort, you can recover anything from anywhere, EXCEPT the edge of the world.

As I stated, I'd be fine with no warning *if* you could return to the scene of the crime and get your stuff, but you CANNOT. Why are we all so ready to just ignore that fact and behavior that is totally inconsistent with the rest of the game?

[Khalysto]

引用自 Kage：

引用自 Reeva!：

other games don't do this

So here's the facts:

1) You're at the edge of the world.
2) Even if you don't know what it is,it is literally the 'end', so the world's edge should be considered the greatest risk. I believe OP knew this was a risk but decided to ignore his gut feeling.

.... Again.. Didn't sail to the edge. Just the periphery before the 'current' pulled me in. I had a solid 20-30 seconds of helplessness before I was pulled over. I *thought* I was maintaining a generous distance.

3) You had every opportunity to prepare for whatever the game would throw at you, including permanently losing gear, which you are familiar with if you ever lost gear in the ocean. I'm going to assume OP either didn't learn this lesson yet, which is strange, or decided to ignore point (2).

How do you prepare for a situation where you *cannot* retrieve your stuff? Why would I ever prepare for a scenario where I *cannot* retrieve my stuff when in 100% of the previous encounters, I was able to retrieve my stuff?

As people have continued to ignore, the devs PATCHED how stuff behaves on the ocean. It used to sink (permanent loss), but now it floats (non-permanent loss).

The devs have shown that they do NOT desire a permanent loss scenario with items. If so, why would they have changed inventory behavior on the ocean? Note: stuff thrown onto a boat still clips through and falls into the ocean. I have no problem with that.

4) Every death is a story you can tell. An experience to learn from. And if you're smart, death is an expectation. Warning the player explicitly about dangerous things defeats the whole atmosphere of the game. Don't advocate for making this game easier, I beg you.

Then I suppose you are against the Raven warnings about entering Black Forest and other dangerous situations??? Should those be removed then because they are 'taking away from the atmosphere'?

Are you really saying a warning near the edge of the world will have any impact to the game's difficulty? I appreciate you listing facts, but you're ignoring the other facts that don't agree with your argument.