Better map, world map vs zone map

[sharp dust]

this is more akin to a zone map

[limpid lily]

picture one is showcasing Homestedt in crosscode as a map vs Lyham and how 1 gives you detail akin to a metroidvania style map about the town, while the other gives you almost 0 information at all.
I feel like this comparison kinda does the opposite of what you're trying to.

The Homestedt map gives you four main pieces of information:

1. shops
2. fast travel point
3. building locations
4. screen transitions

The Lyham map gives you

1. cooking spots
2. fast travel point
3. your current location (I don't remember if Crosscode had this, but neither of your screenshots of its area maps do)
4. elevation changes (which includes buildings due to their roof being 'elevated terrain')
5. water (untraversible terrain)

the Lyham map arguably contains all the same relevant information (except for blacksmith location, which would be equivalent to shops) while providing more useful information (detailed elevation) for actually navigating within a given screen

it does feel kinda weird though that buildings are just identifiable as being notably geometric elevated terrain instead of having a separate indicator

[tough marlin]

The map of AD is designed as a world map and will stay like this :) More contect icons like shops and gem forge will be added, otherwise if I'm honest I don't see your point at all. How do you only have a vague sense of direction when the map is litterally your current position in the world down to the exact tile your are standing in?

[sharp dust]

how is it giving the opposite of what im trying to do or explain? geniunely curious so i can try to explain better maybe with a video

i will try to explain further. But without going into detail yet mid dream run, its like a metroidvania map. Crosscode had both the world map & zone maps which yes didnt give you a head that followed in the zones, but gave you the ability to plan routes according to the shifting tiles within a zone. Where as in AD your kind of running blind guessing sometimes which tileset goes into a section your trying to get to.

[limpid lily]

how is it giving the opposite of what im trying to do or explain?

You’re saying that CrossCode, which uses a structure akin to what you’ll find in many metroidvanias (map that is presented as a series of connected rooms with low to no detail on the contents of those rooms) for its area maps, provides more detail/information compared to Alabaster Dawn’s map, which is presented akin to a topographical map (one continuous map displayed primarily as differing elevations). To support this point you compare an area in each game, both of which are (loosely) small open townesque spaces: Homestedt and Lyham and claim that Homestedt give more detail and Lyham gives almost none. Actually visiting both areas in game reveals that the opposite is largely true.

While Homestedt (arguably) gives more information about what the points of interest are (shops, fast travel, distinct buildings) as it misses most of the terrain features of the area (river cutting through from top left to bottom right, elevated terrain used for a platforming puzzle + at the top) making the map somewhat useless for trying to navigate the area.

Lyhamn, on the other hand, has less labeled points of interest and less clear buildings, but provides significantly more useful information for actually navigating the space (the presence of impassible terrain (water in the middle), where elevation changes, how specifically it connects to other areas).

the big difference is that if you see something in AD (a treasure chest, a cave, something else) that you want to get to, you can generally open up the map and use that to find a path to get there, something you couldn't do at all with CrossCode's set of interconnected squares.
to provide a specific example in Lyhamn you can look on the map and see that ||you can use the roofs of the buildings|| to get to the treasure on the isolated cliff you see when you first enter the village ||once the buildings have been built||

its not perfect for navigation (nor would I want it to be) due to the lack of small rocks and other similar obstacles, but its significantly better for figuring out how to get from point A to point B

[high kettle]

I think the map is solid but what I really miss are the clear "room separations" from CrossCode. When I look at ADs map I am in a nether space where I know general direction but can't map that to the actual transitions I need to make. Maybe this is what OP is alluding to?

[subtle ermine]

yeah I agree, I did find the map a little hard to use

[sharp dust]

yeh this is exactly what im referring to! and im making a video detailing it all better for easier feedback

[brave turtle]

Honestly while I think there is an argument for some room borders if there's one thing that would be nice for the map would be some area boundaries
That is, show what part is koro valley and which part is considered aurum plains (even if it doesn't perfectly align with room transitions)

[obtuse kettle]

I personally love the current map. I think comparing it to crosscode's map is a moot point because it's one of the few ways a developer can really showcase the world and the feel for the setting. For the most part, players can make do with whatever map you give them, heck Tunic has you use the tutorial book/game guide as a map!

Not having the screen transitions makes the world feel much more real. To make the crosscode comparison, the screen transition-based map kinda made sense because you were playing a game within a game. This is just straight up a world, and yet we have a magical GPS showing us where we are. Frankly we're spoiled. My first reaction when seeing the map in this game was a sense of wonderment at the detail and the open-world feel of the map. It truly makes the world feel more free than it is for practical purposes, which is definitely the vibe the maps play too. The terrain out of bounds that looks almost traversable is a testament to this. The world doesn't have awkward obviously human placed hills or mountain ranges created to guide the player in a specific way. The whole map feels natural, and I love that. It is telling a different story.

[sharp dust]

im going to sound snarky, but whats with the defensiveness towards my feedback?

i really dont think its hard to explain how 1 map offers far more clarity for a quick glance to the eyes.
crosscode, you can see building outlines and even see the entrances to the buildings. there is clear seperation with solid lines and colors.
in alabaster dawn, in LYham, the houses are green boxes all in diferent shades of green with 0 indication of even entrances.
i cannot fathom how that offers more information to the player.

CrossCode uses what I call 'semantic' design. It uses distinct colors and sharp outlines so you can instantly tell a shop from a house, and indoor space from a garden path ect ect.

in the Lyham map, a building is basically just a collection of green lump hues. The dev calls it 'geometric elevated terrain,' and while that’s technically true, it’s a chore to look at and decipher. And dosen't help the player plan routes through shifting tiles in any way

its the same reason most people actually say don't use google maps with actual satellite view for navigation. (( as seen in screenshots )) . When you are using a map for navigation reasons, you don't need it to show all the terrain detail in any way. Because that detail becomes colors and data your eyes need to decipher.
** not where i live its fine / safe **

all your praising is the GPS head , without understanding my feedback correctly. Which is why im trying to bring the distinction of the zone map feeling vs a world map

anywho im working on a video to better explain this. And why i think its a lost niche thing that appeals to the 16bit era of graphics and gaming. And can add to a completionists feeling of exploration. While helping create more intricate open world puzzles that the player can decipher by studying their map.

[limpid lily]

. The dev calls it 'geometric elevated terrain,
I called it that, not a dev

and I agree that CrossCode does buildings better than AD

[high kettle]

The reason I call out the "zone" boundaries was because while the AD map is really nice, what I really want to use the map for is navigating my movement so I know which directions to head.

An Open World map is more suitable in a true open world with unbounded degrees of freedom - but AD, like CrossCode, is actually moving between large rooms. I'd love to at least see a zone boundary over the map room I'm mousing over on the AD map.

I've found AD's map hard to navigate with.

[obtuse kettle]

If there weren't screen transitions, you'd have to do the exact same methods of exploration to figure out how to access specific areas

[obtuse kettle]

I'm not sure you can read because I was actually praising the aesthetic experience and story that the map tells 🙂

[tough marlin]

Okay, okay.

1.) Stop with the passive aggressive tones, both of you.
2.) As I said before, this will stay the way it is. This was one of the most requested thing people wanted in CC, now we did and people want it back. Can't make all happy I guess.
3.) Will we make changes to the world map in time? Sure, but it will never go back to "Metroid"-maps.
4.) Simple "map borders" are not possible as all maps strongly overlap to achieve the world-map feel both in the map and while traversing the map.

You can continue to argue in a civil manner, please.

[raw ether]

On your 4th point, I understand that is not possible to add borders corresponding to screen transitions.
But would that be possible to add some regional borders like we would have on an IRL world map for the borders between regions/countries?

Like a delimiter between Koro Valley / Aurumn plains, etc.
When you zoom out you would instantly see the InGame regions with their names, and by zooming in you would have the details of each region

[high kettle]

Well ultimately the experience for me right now is frustration with the map as a navigation tool.

If nothing else, could we at least have very clearly visible roads on the map?

[tranquil coral]

Personally, when I started playing, I didn't really get navigation on the map. Now though it's simple. If you zoom out you see roads pretty clearly, and if you zoom in you can see exactly where juno is in relation to specific areas. I think the map is far better than crosscode's.

[high kettle]

I'd say you can only "sort of" see the roads. They're dark green because its showing the elevation, so you can make them out, but the map doesn't stitch the areas together clearly and doesn't really show how they connect. Even if the roads on the map were colored differently they'd be a great deal easier to see.

CrossCode's map was very functional but not very immersive.

It's strengths were:

1. It shows the discrete map cells
2. It shows how those cells connect
3. It reflects directly how I actually interact with spaces in gameplay

It's weaknesses were:

1. It could not show where in the map cell you were
2. Needing to back out to the world map and recenter on the region map was cumbersome
3. It was not very immersive, showing a strict functional representation of play

AD's map sort of inverted that. The map is a lot more immersive, there's more detail, and my position on the world map reflects my position in the cell. I also don't need to back out to a region map (certainly not yet at least).

But I feel like I've lost the direct analogue of play. I don't interact with the map cells as a large contiguous space with freedom of movement. The cells connect at discrete places, there are discrete cells, and they're connected on the logic of intentional pathways. It's like I'm playing the original Zelda on Skyrim's map.

This impedes my experience when I want to go a specific location and I try to determine the best place to start and the relative direction I want to move. My first real frustration point was the quest where you need to unblock the road and you need to run around behind the roadblock to access the Nyx.

By no means would I suggest throwing it out or changing how it works on a fundamental level. But what are the additions to the existing map that would rectify the loss of the strengths in CrossCode's map. I think that could happen with:

1. Clearly delineated roads - the intentional path connections
2. Landmarks better marked on the map somehow

Even just this would help me immensely

[limpid lily]

I think it might be a learning curve (the map is less intuitive when you first see it but more useful once you've learned to use it)/accessibility (the color differences not being super obvious to everyone) issue if that makes sense? Because even if there's not yellow lines (or some other 'road' indicator that stands out) everywhere it does feel to me like the map is structured to show the paths you use to traverse it ( it does struggle with frequent elevation changes though, compare silver fields' constant color changes with the area just to the south of it being largely the same shade of green for the main path).

as an aside, I find it kinda funny that Lyhamn is the example people keep using (myself included), since it feels like kinda a bad example due to being a largely flat, open area instead of the more enclosed/path based structure you get from most of the other areas so far

[tranquil coral]

I do think adding some tile-based color changes might be a good idea, also re another thread about the map being green even when in lost lands. If the path were slightly more yellowed and my areas reddish, it would make the map easier to read while keeping what seems to be radical fishes vision for the map.

[orchid sapphire]

I had a hard time using AD's map, although playing other games with the same map system did not bother me. Idk if it's because I'm expecting a game with an open-world-ish map to not have borders between rooms ?

Maybe adding a minimap feature could improve the experience ?

[lusty kelp]

I really understand that the "zone map" system can still be fun, add nostalgia and more straigthforward completionist feeling, but the world map this way add SO MUCH depth, world building, consistency, readability and all, we're trading the little fun of decyphering the map/remembering information zone by zone, for so much more new consistent stuff!
And you can absolutely trust Radical Fish to add QoL (icons/readability), find new ways to make new intricate world puzzles, reinforce the completionist feeling for the late game, and fully exploit this new system!

We must let the team explore new mechanics, and I absolutely have no doubt it will be even better than CrossCode map in almost every way

[zenith bear]

Agreed that it's less about a Crosscode-style "zone map" and more about letting the player know where the roads are (even if it's only after we've traveled through them once or something). The zone style did that, showing where gateways/doors/transition zones are and everything, but I don't think they would fit the style of Alabaster.

A good example of where the path isn't obvious would be the first area. From playing the demo to the early access release I had completely forgotten that I had to go through the beach to reach the next town. A character does tell Juno, but the player may have forgotten it.

The map doesn't make it clear - at least to me - where do I need to go to leave the first town/area and get to the next one.

[sharp dust]

Understood on the technical limitations. However, I want to clarify that I am not here to argue with anyone or change people's tastes. I posted this as a direct line of feedback to the development team. A feedback channel * in my opinion * shouldn't operate as a debate floor where constructive issue reports are an invitation for counter-opinions on personal enjoyment from other players.
That environment makes it incredibly difficult to report genuine usability friction without it turning into personal arguments . I am simply sharing a friction point for the dev team's data; I am not looking to debate it with the community as a whole. Thats kinda what breeds the passive aggressive tones.. Defensive retorts to objective feedback are exactly what cause these threads to turn passive-aggressive in the first place :S

To be clear, I am not asking you to scrap the entire world map design. Demanding you throw away your system would be incredibly entitled, and I am not implying your work is 100% wrong. I am simply pointing out that an open world map designed for a game with shifting&overlapping tiles creates navigation confusion. The lack of distinct detail like green houses sitting on top of green backgrounds, relying only on subtle shades for outlines, makes it very difficult to parse visually.
If simple map borders are completely impossible due to how the overlapping layers function, then that engineering constraint right there highlights why the map is inherently inaccurate for players trying to navigate. In a perfect world, the main world map could stay exactly as it is for the aesthetic feel, but we would have a minimap or toggleable filters to clearly show zone transitions within those overlapping tiles.

And maybe the community could help with developing that

[still trench]

I do think a minimap wouldent be a great addition tbh. typically when a minimap is added players just run around looking at that instead of the actual environment. it decentivizes learning the actual map and paying attention to your surroundings. thats what iv seen from minimaps mostly anyways, myself included admittedly

[tough marlin]

Exactly. And for that reason there will never be a mini map.

Not from us anyway.

[fresh wing]

I can think of two straightforward ways (conceptually-speaking) to highlight walkable paths:

• The first would be to design a logical map/overlay with buildings and roads rather than topographic data. But I'm pretty sure the devs would have to design it by hand. Or at least I can't think of an algorithm that's conceptually simple enough that it wouldn't require more work than designing the map by hand. So that'd be some work.
• The second would be an edge-detection transformation. It's simple on paper: a two-levels gap in altitude can't be crossed by the player, ie it marks the separation between a walkable path and unwalkable environment. But in practice it's really not that easy to obtain a result that's easily readable at a glance, and the topographical color palette generates a lot of noise when an edge-detection transformation is applied to it (see how water bodies and the area around Eternal Spring are made artificially more visible in the transformed screenshot), and it also doesn't account for non-terrain obstacles such as trees, nor does it differentiate between path/environment edges and environment/environment edges. So I believe the devs would have to adapt an algorithm or design their own, which would also be a fair amount of work.

All of which is to say, I'm always in favor of accessibility and if some players really struggle with reading the topographical map, alternate options are a legitimate ask, but it does require work on the devs so I'd understand if it's not considered a priority.

[sharp dust]

alright im going to delete this post. its just turning into people constantly chimming in to voice counter opinions instead of just listening to viable feedback. And clearly the dev's aren't interested in this feedback or even if the community could help

Kind of odd, like do people scroll through feedbacks just to retort against them? seems cynical

the whole point of EA is for feedback... not a circle jerk of people only chimming in saying " OH BUT I LIKE IT LIKE THIS " to retort others lol.

if you don't like the idea of minimap offer alternative ideas MAYBE ?!?!

[still trench]

we are allowed to give our own opinions just as much as you are. part of feedback is discussion. would you rather everyone make a seperate thread for every counter argument?

[lusty kelp]

I mean the original first post is for feedbacks/ideas, and devs can still access, read it and process it easily!
I feel like letting people discuss below a feedback is great and important, but yeah it shouldn't go to far from the original topic.

But for example, if ONE people make a feedback saying "I don't like THIS, other system are better" and 100 other players REALLY enjoy THIS, it's important that the discord server allow people to say "we understand you don't like it but we love it and it makes sense for us" bellow the feedback!

[true peak]

I think it’s completely ok for someone to post their feedback and for other people to either agree or disagree, it’s on the OP to (respectfully) explain their suggestion, and on the devs to take it or not!

Also, nothing ever goes to waste in my experience. Maybe right now some suggestion is not viable, but maybe later some other unrelated idea comes to the devs and they can leverage what’s discussed here to their benefit.

As long as we’re having these convos in good faith and in the best interest of the game, I see value in it!

Sticking to the actual topic, my mind goes in a different direction. I like the map we have, and I also would love maybe to be able to press a button and see a list of all the teleport points so I can scroll through them and have the map move to them every time I scroll down. That still respects the vision of the devs while helping controller players move around the map a bit easier lol

[still trench]

thatd be nice assuming areas were seperated into seperate sections that you could collapse or jump betweeb w/ bumpers or something. otherwise itll be a LOT of scrolling prob

[true peak]

Yeah, but maybe it's collapsible stuff into named areas like they are today, so maybe it's super simple yet very useful?

To be clearer, maybe something like grouping all the "Koro Valley" stuff together into a collapsible list, etc.

[sharp dust]

Maybe I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, im sorry. I’m not saying others aren't entitled to feedback. My point is just that a feedback post shouldn't be treated as a poll invitation. Even 100 replies out of 10k to 50k+ sales is just a tiny, niche subset of the player base.

As an IT nerd with a dev background, I got defensive because my approach was just: "Hey devs, we have a UI problem." The meme I will show is what happens when backend devs design a UI with zero frontend forethough, it's a usability nightmare haha.

That’s why teams have dedicated UI/UX designers focused on the user experience. They’re usually vastly outnumbered by regular devs or the tight-knit community closest to them (like Discord). But it’s their job to say, "I don't care if you 100 devs understand this because you use it daily. My job is to make this intuitive and fun for the end user."

This is, to some degree, a UI accessibility issue. If a game wants wide appeal, map design in an exploration game is crucial. CrossCode’s map was polarizing, and now Alabaster Dawn has the same issue for some.
But there has to be a way to meet in the middle! That’s why I actually love seeing other players share concrete ideas, like drawing lines on map screenshots to show solutions. That turns the discussion into a brainstorming session of creative ideas, rather than just a polling session.

[true peak]

I see where you're coming from for sure! I feel that, if you're ok with some feedback, sometimes there might be resistance not because of the idea being bad, but because they way it comes across.

Like here you're saying "Hey devs, we have a UI problem" (which I know you're just making an example, I'm not nitpicking) where the devs clearly and consistently are saying through all the feedback posts that they're more looking for "Hey devs, here's some feedback/challenge I'm having/feature I don't quite like/new idea". We have a ton of experience as individuals, many of us are devs, but that doesn't really translate to such a sharp authority to claim there is a problem with something that might be deliberate.

Once again, I'm super pro feedback so I see this as a great thing! I'm just hopefully trying to show that even if something feels "wrong" to us, it might just be part of the magic that they intend to have and we don't really decide that. Like Resident Evil 1's messy controller... it was part of their goal to stress you out. I'm not whiteknighting here for RFG lol, just saying it's only a problem when it's egregious or not inspired, and I don't think we are there with this feature.

Still, some cool ideas have come out of this thread and I hope they're heard, which is immensely valuable and that's what we should all want!