I don’t think anyone will argue that the minimap is immersion breaking, and the quest indicators even more so. I like to really get into the world and enjoy the art / ambiance of the different zones, monsters, etc. but its hard to forget that I’m probably procrastinating when I’ve got a (relatively big) minimap staring me down, let alone little arrows screaming “GO HEREEE!”
My eyes are just drawn to it despite myself. Idk how hard it would be to provide players with an opt-in setting to disable the minimap, or at least its indicators, but I’d be surprised if it was ironed into the interface to the point where you couldn’t manipulate it at all.
Just my two cents. I know I’ve brought this up a couple times before, but I’ll continue to bring it up unless I’m told it’s not happening and to stop asking lol.
What Revelasti is explaining here is that delete by default will hide the entire UI. I don’t think OP is looking to hide everything however.
I’m with you @Nightman9001, some more UI customization would be good polish for this game. Hiding or resizing the minimap, disabling indicators, would be a welcome addition. Personally, I’d like to be able to hide the quest log, time, area level, chat window and probably some other things as well. To have a more immersive experience.
You’re correct in your interpretation - I only really play solo hardcore characters, so turning the entire UI off isn’t a realistic option - I need to see my resource values. As for the chat window, I know you can turn chat off in the social options, and unless my memory is straight up trolling, that hides the chat box pretty much altogether because it’s inactive at all times.
Hope that can help you a bit at least! Good suggestion on the quest log, you can collapse it but I imagine it would look pretty weird / out of place without the minimap above it. That would probably be just as distracting lol, though at least it wouldn’t be telling me where to go.
As someone who’s legally blind in one eye with imperfect vision in the other, I use this setting at about 60% by default and it’s really not that great
Edit: Initially just said blind, technically legally blind - I can see out of it… just, so poorly I can’t read a stop sign from like 10 feet away. Maybe even closer, really - it’s not like I go out there and test this arbitrary metric regularly hahahah.
The minimap is the least distracting part of the UI, off in the corner. If it is immersion breaking, why isn’t the rest of the UI immersion breaking? Turning off the UI unfortunately is a bit buggy right now but if you are distracted so easily by something off in the corner I’m surprised you are okay with the rest of it.
The first one being, like most well designed isometric games the levels intentionally send you toward the top side of the screen the vast majority of the time, because the UI elements have a low degree of opacity - IE you’re not gonna get killed by some goon hidden by your HP/mana gauges or skill bar. Your eyes are naturally pulled toward the section of the screen where the minimap is located.
Another factor is that the minimap provides information that I explicitly DON’T want, namely the precise location of my objective. This is subjective but as I mentioned in the original post, I like to explore and discover whatever game world I’m in - the very design of having a highly visible golden arrow pointing me in the “right” direction discourages you from going literally anywhere but where it’s showing you. You may consciously want to explore, but you’ll always have the nagging feeling that you’re going the wrong way none-the-less. It’s like using suboptimal gear when trying to do multiplayer content in an mmorpg because you just like that gear better - it’s your prerogative, but you’re constantly going to get reminded of the fact that “you’re not doing it right” and who the fuck wants to put up with that when the whole point (ESPECIALLY when playing solo) is to have fun? If I want to “do something right” I’ll go be productive lmao.
Finally, I’ll concede that some of this may have to do with me having poor vision in my left eye - my right eye overcompensates so I may be more sensitive to UI elements on the right. I also didn’t think of this point originally but @SirFreckle made a good point about the quest log being in the way too - curently I don’t mind it minimized, but if the minimap WERE optional having that minimized border in the middle of nowhere on the right side of the screen would be pretty jarring / awkward, so I hope that would also be an option.
Ultimately I think what this comes down to is just having a decent degree of UI customization options - we all have different preferences and care about different information to varying degree. Like I play solo hardcore characters - when it’s dead, it’s dead, and I can’t even use whatever loot I stashed on a diff character - I absolutely need to know what my HP is at pretty much at all times during a fight, but if I was playing a softcore char I imagine that’s not nearly as important and maybe someone WOULD want to turn the hp gauge off.
Edit: A couple typos and rephrased 2 sentences for clarity.
I guess I didn’t address your question explicitly - the feeling of immersion break (personally) stems from being de-incentivized to experience the game world first-hand.
I can’t feel getting stabbed by a bid bird-man’s polearm (thank god lmao), so I need an HP gauge. I know what my skills are, so I don’t mind seeing them. I don’t know the exact layout of every zone (and there are a whole lotta zones even once you’ve got a lot of hours under your belt) and I want to have a reason to actually explore them, otherwise what’s the point of having it be anything less than a linear corridor with monsters???
That’s kinda the point to this genre. More traditional RPGs are better for exploring, like Elder Scrolls or Cyberpunk.
I am surprised more developers haven’t opened up customizing the UI though as that is not a new concept at all and some developers in the past let you completely customize the UI how you want.
While the killing hordes of monsters may be a defining feature, there’s a reason there are so many non-viable skills in games that have competitive systems (like ladders or pvp) just like there’s a reason the maps aren’t just a series of linked corridors; the illusion of choice. The illusion of choice is one of the big tricks that make video games fun. There’s a TED talk that illustrates this really well by comparing a seemingly random set of inputs to completing SMB level 1-1.
Ultimately I know I’ve only got 1 way to go to advance the story, and I’ll likely be brought back to any missed side areas later through side quests, but I’m not playing games to try and be rational, I’m intentionally trying to let go of my otherwise hyper-rational & pragmatic self, which isn’t always easy in the first place. The content is there, why not make the most of it by helping the people who want to experience it in a more involved way??? Outside of the work involved in allowing users to customize the UI (which I think would be a widely appreciated feature in general) I can’t think of a single negative impact this would have.
Maybe something as simple as an opacity setting could be easily put in for now, in lieu of the more involved work of setting up the UI for customization.
There is an opacity setting at the moment that affects the lines of the map and it can make them transparent, though it won’t affect the arrows or quest pings…
