Over-world gameplay

[nomotog]

Most of the time the overworld is just has you walking and fighting random battles, but have people tried adding more gameplay systems into the overworld? It's an idea I want to explore some and most of what I am coming up with tends to fall into the realm of neat, but why would the player what to do that? For example you could rig up events that allow the player to use fire spells to burn down forest tile, but I can't think of why a player would use a system like that. What benefit would it be?

 

[Rhaeami]

The overworld is functionally identical to a regular map in most games, especially RPG Maker games. The reason nobody does special out-of-combat stuff on the overworld is because they don't do special stuff *anywhere*. The flip side is that if you want to do something, you can easily look to dungeon or town levels for inspiration. For example, why burn down forest tiles, you ask? The same reason you would in a woodsy dungeon - as gating to let the player access new areas after learning to do it.

I honestly can't think of any ideas that make a map of any sort more interesting or interactive that wouldn't also be usable in an overworld.

 

[Amarok]

Yeah there is lots of interesting mechanics to try in an overworld map, my biggest inspiration in that regard was always the mount and blade games. In those games you spend most of your time traveling from one town to another, chasing or running from enemy armies, buying goods in this city to sell them in another, etc.
No reason why something like that cant work on a more traditional rpg if done properly.

 

[bgillisp]

I think it depends on your game. For example, I ended up turning off random battles on my overland map as it is in a heavily populated area, so why are monsters still roaming around and attacking people? Instead, I put the towns and such really close together, so it is now more of a pick your next destination type of map.

 

[nomotog]

The overworld is functionally identical to a regular map in most games, especially RPG Maker games. The reason nobody does special out-of-combat stuff on the overworld is because they don't do special stuff *anywhere*. The flip side is that if you want to do something, you can easily look to dungeon or town levels for inspiration. For example, why burn down forest tiles, you ask? The same reason you would in a woodsy dungeon - as gating to let the player access new areas after learning to do it.

I honestly can't think of any ideas that make a map of any sort more interesting or interactive that wouldn't also be usable in an overworld.

That is a good idea to look at towns and dungeons for inspiration. I guess I could just design the overworld as if it was a massive dungeon. Treat the different regions like rooms. (Now I just need to think of games with neat dungeons and what I can steal from them.)

The exact example listed of burning a forest to open a path is one I did consider, but boiled down it's a new way to travel. Like the boat or airship. It's neat but I am looking for more.

 

[fiddlesticks]

In my game when you reach over world battle system changing into real time action as little special thing. Also vechile unlock with combat on vechiles and more tiny special addition to gameplay.. like NPC chapters and monster chapters before go back into real story. Also secret place that be only can unlock after do something certain in one place or the other....

 

[Oddball]

You could have an event where its a special merchant that appears at random parts of the map, and make it a place you can go to, but make it so that the player stumbles upon it instead of just going "Oh, there's the merchant". It would be like a rare random encounter. There are other things too. i'll think on it, because im doing this myself and that was one of my ideas. probably a bad one though

 

[fiddlesticks]

You could have an event where its a special merchant that appears at random parts of the map, and make it a place you can go to, but make it so that the player stumbles upon it instead of just going "Oh, there's the merchant". It would be like a rare random encounter. There are other things too. i'll think on it, because im doing this myself and that was one of my ideas. probably a bad one though

it just like dungeon fighter online aha..