The "Yellow Paint" Discourse - Cus what would DSP do without the giant arrow pointing towards the exit?

[Mr.Miyagi]

I think it's understandable why visual guides are needed. But I think it's infinitely more interesting to make those guides be part of the world itself. One of my favorite examples has to be with the Half-Life 1 mod "Half-Life: Echoes", where a lot of the guidance is with the lights used in the building.

Valve (or perhaps Turtle Rock, I forget who specifically was recorded for that node) also brought this up in their developer commentary on Left 4 Dead. I really appreciated going through and listening to all of those back when the Orange Box came out, because you get a lot of insight into how these games function, even stuff like the infamous antlion maze. If you put a light source into an environment, especially a darker environment with threats, players will naturally be drawn to it like moths to a flame. Once I realized that, I noticed it in many other games, and noticed it even more so when it was absent.

I guess the issue in general is how you can make an environment that has a more "natural" or "fitting" element to draw attention to interactivity, especially in areas that are heavily cluttered or dense with foliage or out in a place without much human activity (can't really have blinking lights drilled into the mountain face, most times.) High-contrast paint is just the simplest and easiest way to demarcate where the pretty scenery ends and the "I can punch this box" begins. And considering the ethos of a lot of these big games developed now is "get it done and out the door this quarter, or else," it's not too hard to see why they go for the path of least resistance.

I also think it's part of the continued effort to make sure that nobody can "fail" the game. Nobody wants to get a bunch of negative reviews and bad word of mouth because the players were too stupid to get past the first level without a hand-holding tutorial that spelled out each and every mechanic (and made you do it three times, of course.) Every game has to operate on the assumption that you've never picked up a controller before, that this is your first time learning that the analog sticks can move you and move the camera, and so on. It's important to have some guard rails (shitty games love to just assume you'll know exactly what the developer was thinking for each encounter, since they had no playtesting beyond the one guy making it), but the confluence of making games "cinematic" and "accessible" means you end up with games that might as well play themselves sometimes, just being stuck on the rollercoaster track until it's over. Yellow paint is part of that.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

The absolute worst I ever saw was Assassin's Creed: Rogue (shit game BTW, it did not deserve its praise and was just pure Black Flag dickriding) where anything interactable sparkled and was gray. Fucking hideous, immersion breaking in the extreme, insulting to my intelligence.

 

[bango skank]

The first game I remember using this was the first Mirror’s Edge, where the path ahead was marked by the color red. At the time, it was an innovative way to guide the player down the intended path at a glance without having immersion-breaking floating arrows pointing the way and I remember there being a lot of talk about it being a smart and intuitive way of marking the way.

I still tend to agree with that sentiment, but developers have definitely gotten too lazy with it, those re4 remake screenshots are particularly egregious. But while there’s no reason for the ruins I’m the first to explore in centuries to have fresh yellow paint all over the place, there definitely needs to be something differentiating between climbable and and non-climbable surfaces that are otherwise identical.

 

[starborn427614]

The first game I remember using this was the first Mirror’s Edge, where the path ahead was marked by the color red. At the time, it was an innovative way to guide the player down the intended path at a glance without having immersion-breaking floating arrows pointing the way and I remember there being a lot of talk about it being a smart and intuitive way of marking the way.

I still tend to agree with that sentiment, but developers have definitely gotten too lazy with it, those re4 remake screenshots are particularly egregious. But while there’s no reason for the ruins I’m the first to explore in centuries to have fresh yellow paint all over the place, there definitely needs to be something differentiating between climbable and and non-climbable surfaces that are otherwise identical.

Yeah, "runner vision" was neat and you could also turn it off if you wanted an added challenge. That option is something a lot of these modern games could learn from.

 

[Halfnium Bomb]

>not making your game as deliberately esoteric as possible
debased and blacksuppositoried, completely lacking in CEO mindset.

 

[Counterfeit Obol]

View attachment 5712037
>not making your game as deliberately esoteric as possible
debased and blacksuppositoried, completely lacking in CEO mindset.

Even Cruelty Squad manages readability despite the deliberate visual diarrhea.
I'd say the yellow paint discourse is a symptom of over-designed levels (like some people have said) because it makes it impossible to figure out where to go next without unsubtle hints.

Of course, there are outliers like ol' Phil, but the point still stands: stop adding too many props.

 

[lichen]

I was amused to see this pop up in my timeline with a FFVII screenshot as the apparent instigator, because in OG FFVII I never turned those little red and green arrows off.

 

[WULULULULU]

Valve (or perhaps Turtle Rock, I forget who specifically was recorded for that node) also brought this up in their developer commentary on Left 4 Dead. I really appreciated going through and listening to all of those back when the Orange Box came out, because you get a lot of insight into how these games function, even stuff like the infamous antlion maze. If you put a light source into an environment, especially a darker environment with threats, players will naturally be drawn to it like moths to a flame. Once I realized that, I noticed it in many other games, and noticed it even more so when it was absent.

This ironically also works on their games, particularly custom made campaigns, the number of people who got lost trying to play I Hate Mountains and Fall in Death are numerous because even modders can't create basic level coherency.

 

[Pissmaster]

I was amused to see this pop up in my timeline with a FFVII screenshot as the apparent instigator, because in OG FFVII I never turned those little red and green arrows off.

I kept them on too. I guess I'm an idiot!

 

[tofudelivery]

That arrow was super obnoxious. I'm pretty sure you could turn it off though. Most games that let you turn it off are greatly improved by doing so. Dishonored is a much better game with objectives turned off.

100% true. The first thing to do in Bioshock 1/2 is to turn off the objective marker and maybe also the object highlight. I did both and had absolutely no trouble finding my way around or hunting for objects. Both games have excellent visual design, which makes me wish they had disabled that stuff by default.

I really like that style of map with moderately sized individual levels but they still have a lot of exploring to be done and reward you for doing so.
We got a lot of tiresome checklist open worlds with maps which are just filled with icons and extreme handhold linear games. There's a good middle ground...

 

[John Shedletsky]

I'd say the yellow paint discourse is a symptom of over-designed levels (like some people have said) because it makes it impossible to figure out where to go next without unsubtle hints.

I have to agree, but I still think it’s just developer laziness more than anything.

 

[Scarthew]

Darker more realistic environments definitely contribute to the problem. Breakable props no longer stand out but there's better ways to do it and they were known back in the early 2000's so I don't get the trend at all. Bright fire engine reds are good for ladders, axes, wrenches, etc. Flickering or lone lights draw the eye. Basic level design, re4 especially was very linear you reached the end of a path that's where you were going, there was no question of which way was the right way. Also new re4 has floating arrows that turn into button prompts when in range.

View attachment 5712037
>not making your game as deliberately esoteric as possible
debased and blacksuppositoried, completely lacking in CEO mindset.

https://twitter.com/CSoftproducts/status/1710021638576644165

 

[Judge Dredd]

Maybe instead of insulting us with the piss paint, devs could adjust the lighting to gather naturally on points of interest instead of just bouncing around pointlessly to show off the rtx?

Maybe if you want us to climb a walls, instead of just making it a sheer 90° cliff like every other wall, you make it a less aggressive slope more with grabbable rocks jutting out. Y'know, the things people look for when they try to climb stuff.

Mayb- y'know what? You don't even have to do anything for breakable objects. Just make it a fucking crate. Gamers have been breaking crates for decades. Same thing for ladders. It's a ladder. We know it's for climbing. Just don't hide them with the foliage paint tool and we're good.

Except that doesn't work. The abundance of crates and barrels was mocked even in the early 2000s, and now we have yellow paint.

A lot of devs could learn about enforcing consistency. Look at how many games have fake doors so that players are given the illusion that this is a real place and not just a maze full of enemies to fight. Players are a contributor to this problem when they demand everything be made "realistic", only to complain when that realism doesn't make the game more fun.

 

[Scarthew]

Except that doesn't work. The abundance of crates and barrels was mocked even in the early 2000s, and now we have yellow paint.

My only complaint with loot being in boxes ezpecially in re4 is that its randomized. They do this so that the dynamic difficulty modifier can ration supplies based on performance which completely goes against its design of resource management. Ya know gameplay concerns, not some obtuse objection to how practical it is to put ammo in a barrel or why enemies stand next to explosives.

 

[Friendly Primarina]

Kind of related: going back to Red Dead Redemption 1 and I'm sick of losing half my health because I can't figure out which group of murky brown pixels is a bad guy. I wish they'd put GTA-style arrows over their heads or done something to make them pop out against the background. Dead Eye targeting helps a little by cranking up the contrast, but It's still annoying.

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

iirc WoW they literally sparkle
but yeah this is sort of "a bad solution to a problem that shouldn't be there" like mentioned previously examples of "oh you can hop over THIS dull brown short wall but not THAT one" and all
visual realism for the sake of realism isn't a good game, and the endless pursuit of "more realistic and crap everywhere and 'bigger' worlds" loses sight of "make a fun game" instead of "pile up even more brown and grey shit than the last game"

 

[Counterfeit Obol]

visual realism for the sake of realism isn't a good game, and the endless pursuit of "more realistic and crap everywhere and 'bigger' worlds" loses sight of "make a fun game" instead of "pile up even more brown and grey shit than the last game"

Hell, even during Half-Life's development Valve admitted that, although they were trying to make realistic environments compared to other FPS titles at the time, some compromise was needed for the sake of fun.

 

[Local FloRida-man]

Except that doesn't work. The abundance of crates and barrels was mocked even in the early 2000s, and now we have yellow paint..

Well it obviously does work considering that yellow paint is still on a... crate or barrel. People will smash crates even in games where they mostly dont have anything because it's inuitive, especially if ithere's a physics engine. The piss paint is unneeded.

Retards like in that link you posted might as well have been mocking the wheel for not being reinvented yet.

 

[John Shedletsky]

Too lazy to archive, but this stuck out to me as fucking hilarious.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Kind of related: going back to Red Dead Redemption 1 and I'm sick of losing half my health because I can't figure out which group of murky brown pixels is a bad guy. I wish they'd put GTA-style arrows over their heads or done something to make them pop out against the background. Dead Eye targeting helps a little by cranking up the contrast, but It's still annoying.

I have bad news for you.

You are literally blind.