Just had to say, considering the heavy use of invisible walls (compared to the typical usage of visible walls/fences/cliffs etc.) this round the displayed map on The Reach zone is quite misleading at first glance. Most of the zones have a border around them of some kind to keep the player inside the playable boundaries of the zone, however it usually doesn't prevent the player from exploring most of the visible map.
With this new zone it is incredibly hard to tell what is "in bounds" and what isn't until you end up face first in an invisible wall you cannot pass, and have to go around to get to something directly in front of you. This border for this zone is so far in from the outer edges it makes navigation using the map displayed more difficult than it should be and not viable, as you really should be able to walk/jump/climb from one location directly to another if you visually could do so on the map.
In addition, there are a number of invisible walls that seems their only purpose is to prevent the player from being able to climb over something and force them to walk around what would otherwise be climbable terrain. This is incredibly poor use of invisible walls, simplistic design and is completely immersion breaking.
Suggested fixes:
-Have your level design team pull the main borders invisible walls back to around half of where they are in relation to the edges of the map, thus enabling more than just ~40% of what is visible on the map to be explored and traversed.
-Have your level design team go over the level and remove invisible walls from inside the main border that serve no purpose from the players perspective other than to force a detour and do not actually keep the player within bounds. This one is big for immersion.
-A few fence sections (stone/wood/other where appropriate) or additional cliffs/rocks along the edges of the map where the invisible walls are located and directly touching the landscape heightmap would go a long way towards helping to identify the maps boundaries while also providing an in experience non-immersion breaking reason for the player not being able to proceed.
~UPDATE: Having breached the invisible wall barrier and explored the areas in question, I must update this thread with regards to my original complaint about the walls blocking off what appeared to be playable terrain. The majority of the terrain in question is in fact incredibly well done set dressing instead - so well done it had me fooled into thinking it was part of the intended play area. That being said there are a number invisible barriers within the outer borders that do in fact cause a hindrance to normal play without actually helping to keep the player in bounds.
Edited by illuvator on September 25, 2020 2:42AM