I have always liked open world games as a concept, but I have a very bad sense of direction. So whenever I play open world games I keep getting lost and frustrated. Eventually getting bored and dropping the game. I am curious how other people with bad sense of direction cope with this problem.

  • skulblaka@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Open world games usually give me a killer map that shows my exact location and heading. I can navigate the real world, too, when handed Google Maps. But I remember playing Minecraft back before the maps update and it was mostly just an exercise in nomadic survival. I’d leave my home for a 20 minute mining run and then never ever find the mfer ever again. Eventually I started a habit of creating a huge pillar of cobble near my home that stretched up to the map height limit and dumping lava buckets around it to make a literal glowing waypoint that I could follow back home.

  • 8rhn6t6s@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Yes as long as the game has a good map system. I hate it when some games don’t have an option to rotate the map to where you are currently facing.

    • ScrewTheHole@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      This would be the worst tool for someone with poor sense of direction. The best would be a map fixed north to the top, so you don’t have to keep track of your direction at all. Spinning maps make even us peeps with a decent sense of direction a bad time

  • Pencilnoob@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    I used to make maps by hand. Over time I got better and better at holding on to where I was. I’ve read studies that playing 3d games increases spacial awareness, so it might get better over time.

    Other options I do when I’m too meh to bother is mods to add maps and quest tracking if the game doesn’t already have it

  • svtdragon@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Maps. Compasses, mini-maps, world maps, map pins, GPS systems.

    I have a poor sense of direction in real life, but games are workable with the same crutches that make real life workable, for the most part.

  • MildManneredPate@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I can navigate game worlds more effectively than I can the real world. I can struggle to visualise a local route but could probably walk you through several zones of a Souls game.

    • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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      1 year ago

      I’m the same way! My partner was surprised when we played a game together and I always knew where to go and they kept getting lost.

      I think it’s because video games do a lot more useful sign posting than real life. Plus a mini map (in some games).