Thread by @delaneykingrox

Okay, so I have had a good go at #reddeadredemtion2 online and... I have notes.

So to sum my experiences so far it is... darn close but it done missed the heart.

So, I am pull it apart from a games developer point of view. There has been a lot of great work in this title, which is why it breaks my heart that it has some easily tackled flaws at the core.

So coming in blind and being a very experienced gamer, I found the UX to be absolutely baffling. The combination of keys needed to perform simple tasks borders on random.

Simple tasks such as emotes, drawing and holstering your pistol, patting or feeding your horse, and picking up items is just infuriatingly obtuse and complex. It really doesn't have to be.

For example. To pat a horse, I have to look at them, stand near enough, hold down right click on my mouse, then reach across my keyboard to press one of the keys on the keyboard. And then I have to hold down both buttons until the action fills before it happens.

Why not just may an "interact" button that brings up a hotbox of options? You walk up to the thing you want to interact with, hold a button and push in a direction- like the sims.

Interacting with things like the stables are worse. Abysmal. Utterly confusing and you can even get stuck in a cycle in your first stable encounter that you cannot escape, forcing you to quit out.

Interacting with characters is just as complex, and the systems in place are maddening. You mosey into town, and enter a saloon.
What do you do? Welp, I dun get me a drink.

What else can I do?

Well, lemme just chat to a local and...

Uhm... strangle them?

Yep, apparently that is all I can do. The interact is strangle. No chats, no bartering, no mission hooks, no "howdy stranger".

Strangle or strangle not. There is no try.

Okay, so lets look at this from a "I wanna be a cowboy, baby" point of view. After a long hard ride, my horse needs a good drink and maybe some hay. I maybe could hit the saloon and gain some favour or missions in town. Get a room to boost my stats and get a bath.

Right?

Okay, so maybe shop for some cool items?

Again, nope, and worse... the catalogue. Oh... the catalogue- I think it is fair to say it is possibly the worst shop in any game ever.

Here is how it works...

You eventually figure out the SHOP in the menu isn't the shop, its a catalogue in your rucksack.

You open the catalogue anywhere... absolutely anywhere in the world. Middle of the desert- cool. And you order. It gets sent to your camp or to a post office.

But here is the thing.

It is real worls money and sight unseen.

YOU CANNOT SEE THE PRODUCT UNTIL YOU HAVE PAID FOR IT AND PUT IT ON.

As cute as the magazine is, it means I wasted real cash on a jacket to make me look like a crimson saloon lady and when it shows up I look like I am in a 1950s cowgirl musical.
No refund, no exploration... just... what the fuck?

What... the fuck?

How did this happen?

So I am not buying any more outfits or items because I have no idea what I will get. Absolutely insane.

But why have shops you cant shop in and post offices you cant order from?

The experience of camping is also hugely flawed. You can't really enjoy the camping experience, as again the UX locks you into a crazy amount of clicks to play canned anims.
Valhiem really shines here, where you sit by the fire, keeping warm and waiting for your meat to cook

Coming from skyrim survival mods, the whole idea of slowly upgrading bedrolls, tents, frypans, pots to cook coffee (you do know you don't just hold your cup over the fire, right?) and other stuff really adds to the verisimilitude.

Nothing is really useful that way

The game world is full of wasted opportunities for things like filling your canteen, staggering into town thirsty and covered in blood and dust (excuse me madam, you cannot enter here looking like that), and other classic western experiences... but... nope

Events are canned, and if you walk out of them, you get a ten second counter to turn back. Open world? Nope. Not really. Its a bunch of canned gameplay strung together with things that should be playable, but aren't.

It just don't live and breathe.

The bones are there but the designers fail and fail heavily. The world is detailed enough- with weather cycles, animals wandering around... but... none of it is really used effectively.

It's empty and clunky, but could feasibly be reworked under the hood to be smooth and cool

A Red Dead Redemption Online sequel that takes the same assets but really builds a core gameplay structure would be great project.

Here is how I would tackle it.

A: UX

Focus on a clean, simple, consistent UX using hotbox options. You highlight the item or person with your reticule and hold E/right click. The hotbox comes up with the options. Release to dismiss, push in a direction to select.

B: Focus gameplay on real world locations and items.

Shop in shop.
Feed horses from a straw pile.
Drink water from a water trough/puddle/saloon (at your own risk).
Get stitched up a docs.
Shelter under shelters.
Bathe in rivers and bathhouses.

C: From the menu, you can visit 'saloons' and 'gatherins' these are on the main servers and allow players to meet characters, pick missions and form posses. Missions can then be triggered and the characters essentially teleport to the closed mission area "ride on in"

However the open world game is a local server that checks in with the main server for your purchases and expansions. You can hire a server or run a local server that you can invite players to share and play numerous roles in. The rest is NPCS and generated encounters

This essentially builds on the idea that you can either work together and explore, explore and occasionally meet, or play rival gangs.

You can also gain gold for buying cosmetics, emotes and stuff by playing npcs OUTLAWS in other peoples servers. basically you play a weaker, slower scumbag but give the players a good challenge.

Essentially building your own little western story world with friends, but allowing players to meet in character without griefing.

Aaaanyway, I am going to get back into it and see what else it has to offer.

So here is my character. I have a tragic back story and everything. You can guess her former career from her clothing and the badly scarred face and skeletal frame kinda tells you why she turned to gunslinging.

So here is one technical art issue that it good to talk about as a lot of game equipment sits like this.

A solution is pretty tricky. Here they have opted to shrug and just do a one size fits all. If you wanted a better solution, you would have to fit the model for each costume it comes in contact with, and factor in blend shapes for the character underneath.

To tackle this, you have to rig the belts to an armature of bones that are parented to a central bone. Attachments such as the gun holster are weighted to their own bone.

Then you have an artist cycle through the costumes and place the bones so the belt fits.

Each costume is essentially 1 frame of an additive animation. You need the most extreme morph targets of each. This obviously takes a little time.

Finally, you apply the animation as an additive animation to the belt based on the costume and the morphs of the character.

It's a lot of work.

However there is another solution...

And that is you include anchor points on your model for things like packs and holsters, and the belt parts are snapped to those. So, holster, buckle, back and hip. The belt/strap parts are then interpolated using constraints.

Amazing how something as simple as allowing variably fat people to wear a holster can eat your processing time

Well played.

The emotes system is also a mess. I honestly have no idea what the plan was for this, but again, a simple hotbox menu from a button hold would have been plenty.

Here I am walking around an absolutely gorgeous city full of folk I can't interact with, of shops that I mostly cannot shop in, and players who just wanna shoot me in the back rather than interact with in a fun way.

Can't say 'howdy' to a passer by, Can't ask strangers for directions on a map or to recommend a trustworthy storekeep or a reliable fence.

No sense of my esteem, my notoriety, my contacts, my home.

Can't seem to move my camp. Can't seem to steal a horse and sell it "you can only bring your own horse in here". Wtf?

Its like a stunningly detailed visual world with a stunningly vacant games design

How did they ship with this UX?

I think of all games, this would be the one where loading pistols and rifles should be slow.
Shootouts would therefore require breathing spaces where you reload. Your character would gain skill here, and you can either let the character load slowly or risk fast

Having just twelve bullets in your pistols is a big fucking deal

Guns jamming and exploding, having to seek cover to reload, making your shots count, having your hands steadier depending on if you are out of breath, powder getting wet...

Really don't feel any of this.

Focusing on character needs would be one path I would focus on to get the feel right.

Thirst, hunger, sunburn, sickness, chills, stress, tiredness, lonesomeness, pride.

Characters could even start with biases to these needs, shaping how you play them. Making bars larger.

Going from sleeping in barns with dirty clothes to building up to being a wealthy person with a house and fine wardrobe should be rewarding.

Or the satisfaction of having a good food store in your mountain shack as winter sets in, well preserved and tasty drinks? Nice.

At the very least, this game needs a total UX overhaul.

Pie menus/hotboxes would make the majority of tasks second nature to perform, stop accidentally attacking people when you mean to sit down, and make the interface use few key combos.

The catalogue must go.

Shops and stores need to replace it entirely.

Emotes need to come off a pie menu, so you can hold and key and gesture in a direction.

Campfires should be more responsive, with a pie menu available when you sit or stand near by and look at it.

Health and stamina needs a bigger, clearer gui.

Instead of paths, way points.
Instead of a radar minimap, a general direction and proximity sense arc.

Instead of menus, doing this more dynamically in camera.

Being able to zoom in and out a little whilst in third person rather than a useless cinematic camera

Name your horse from a pie menu, rather than a parking garage stable.

Buy things the camp needs instead of having a warning about camp upkeep popping up.

Really limit carry slots, and allow purchase of packs, bags, pockets and horse packs.

Another aspect that could really help is the concept of animosity.

You CANNOT harm another player if you have no animosity rating. You simply cannot fire your gun and explosives only throw them around at worst.

Animosity can only be unlocked by consent. They use their pie menu to hurl an insult, and you can ignore it, insult back or step up. Step up means you unlock animosity and a fight can happen.

You also unlock animosity whilst on a mission that opposes them.

By focusing on players being allies by default and ONLY enemies by mutual consent, you change the environment and tone of the game.

Having to go through a round of conversation (and selectinf challenge and interaction using pie menu emotes) BEFORE you can kill and rob a player is a big change.

Now, having a player outlawed means other players can bounty hunt them or run them down in a posse.
Having a call out when a player does this means a bunch of players descend on your position, try to track you and get the reward.

Bad behaviour invites getting targeted.

Welp, that's me for today.

Oh, one last thing. If you have a face rub emote... maybe don't allow to use it when your character is holding a bloody great knife. K?

I mean... how much easier is this?