Non obvious doors
Is there any way to make the game highlight doors/exits? There are a whole lot of places in the game where the only way you'd know an area is a transition point just by the mouse over icon in the pc version. But the iPad version has no such thing. I find my self tapping all over the place in spots where I know there ought to be door around until I get lucky. Or I end up looking up maps online about the exact locations. It's somewhat of a pain.
1
Comments
I agree it would be better if all doors were highlighted with the tab feature, but it is functional as is.
It's still "random searching" all over the screen till you find the hidden object you're looking for. It's a problem with the original game, not Beamdog's design or the iPad interface.
It's possible that they can solve this with the smart tap location thingie they're working on, but it seems like it'd be a lot cleaner to pop up an icon over all doors - even hidden doors. It's possible they can't do that for whatever reason though.
I completely agree that there should be a solution, such as highlight or displaying an icon on hidden doors when the magnifying glass (tab button equivalent for iPad) is taped, for the iPad hidden doors problem.
That method served well to find hidden doorways and other objects covered by the graphics interface also. I agree with you that something needs to be done...having a doorway that you can only find if you know it's there creates a broken game. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for something being done with this.
My argument, however, is more basic: The original game had hidden items that you had to search for on the screen. This was a design concept and intentional by the developers...more basically: Finding hidden items in a map was part of the game play of the game.
You cannot suggest that Beamdog has done a horrible job implementing Baldur's Gate on the iPad because they've left items on the screen hidden that the "hints" button cannot find. That was INTENTIONAL. The fact that there is no cursor to drag over the screen may be a design flaw, but none of the suggestions posted cover the original design intent of the game:
Sure you can highlight the entrance to the hidden doors, but what do you do for the location for the hidden items in the interface, like the ring of wizardry? Do you really put that under the hints button and make it easy to find? It was never SUPPOSED to be easy to find. Nor, I guess, were these hidden doors.
The problem you identify is that there is nothing on the iPad that can mimic the "drag and change icon" search methodology that was part of the original release of the game. The closest you can get to that is "tap all over the screen till you find what you're looking for."
While I do NOT disagree that this needs to be made easier, but what we're doing right now seems to be CLOSER to the original design intent of the game than highlighting these hidden objects with the tap of the screen would be.
In essence the suggestions so far trivialize a certain small subset of the original game play. Feel free to continue to argue that that content SHOULD be trivialized...I will wholeheartedly agree with you, but highlighting hidden exits on the screen trivializes the hunt for hidden items that the original game was originally designed with.
I agree with all what @Illydth said those are very good points, yes highlighting makes it to trivial, but something needs to be done (again agreeing with @Illydth) and highlighting was the Idea that other people offered and the first thing that came to mind.
If anyone has a better solution that would keep the hidden doors hidden, but without having to tap randomly that would be grate.
And how many of those doors do have map markers beyond Kaigan's?
And yeah, my point above was about how few of the hidden - and we are still talking hidden by perspective here - doors actually have map markers. It would be much simpler if these doors, which are obvious and in plain sight from your characters perspective, were shown via a hint mechanism. Even if all of these doors had map markers (something obviously unfeasible, as it would clutter the maps), them showing up through hint mechanism would still be the more intuitive option for the player.
from what I have read on this thread so far(and I agree with what was said), we as users want:
doors/entry ways (not objects or things that are intended to be difficult to find, thees are not part of the discussion) that are covered, by a roof or any other scenery, but are not intended to be hidden to the user to be highlighted when a button is tapped (example: the magnifying glass button). thees doors/entry ways do not include hidden doors until they are reveled to the user/character when the correct values are randomly generated behind the scenes.
This post is just meant to summarize what we as users want the developers to do, to make it easier for them to do what we want. I believe we all want the same thing basically but are adding extra things beyond the basics to what the original question/request was. Thus I have tried to keep it to the bare essentials of what we all want.
Pleas post your confirmation if my assessment of the problem and the solution is correct (or hit the agree button to this post if you prefer), or post your opinion if you disagree.
+1
*FYI: this is not a complaint, because the game is very well done in any version PC, Mac, iPad, etc..., rather I mean it as constructive criticism to improve the game EDIT: oh... I already said this... Lol*
Here's a way that might work when trying to discover the edges of the map that are clickable. Perhaps when you hit the magnifying glass, a small two or three millimetre bar going all along the edges of the screen could appear to define that space as clickable. It could be a light blue/green/purple highlight in the same way they've implemented it with other openables. In the past, this would have been achieved with a mouse-over compass or gear icon. Simply adding a faint highlight to the edges of maps (or specific areas on the edge of a map if it doesn't extend all the way across) when the magnifying glass is clicked would help out immensely.
so my question in the post I have wrote on January 4th still stands, pleas make your decision known for the development team, and lets eliminate this issue. so far what I have understood there are no objections and several people that are fore the proposed solution I have given on January 4th for this topic.