I see a lot of folks seethe hatred for quests, I just picture the old D&D cartoon Dungeon Master aproaching them and saying something like. "Oh mighty hero, I have a quest for thee!" and then the player spitting in his face and kicking him in the groin for having the odacity to give them a quest.
If I played with a DM whose DMing skills ended at "kill ten orcs" I'd quit his games. Which seems to be what people do when MMOs shower them with pointless, boring tasks.
Not going read all other wall of text posts and what I say might of been said.
I hate when questing is forced on you. Like grinding mobs is so low exp to questing that you have to quest almost.
Quests that feel boring with little point. Kill X amount of creatures and come back. Bring me X item from said creature. I don't mind this stuff if it has point and maybe builds up to something meaningful.
I think quests should be like bonus. Best way I can explain this is like back in day with everquest. Low level zone called crush bone. The orc had belt as uncommon drop. You collect them as you kill them and when bags are full you make run to turn them in. You didn't need have the quest before you started and can save up as many as you could hold then do 10x plus turn in's. Got lot exp and random armor.
I'm kinda tainted to most questing since everquest. I wish more games do quests where you didn't need have it before hand to do it. I had tons items back in day in everquest that were lore not knowing what quest they were for.
Also best thing about everquest. There were huge range in quests from real hard to easy.
Simple quests put me on auto pilot and just isn't that fun.
I'm one of those people who detest quests with a passion. At first I enjoyed them. They were rare and fit nicely into the lore and gave you a rational reason to be doing things.
But now MMO's are saturated with them. "please Mr Hero go and pick up my vials from the next village." I mean... really? Here is my toon, decked out in expensive armor that f***ing glows a sickly green color with a giant sword that sucks the lifeforce from my enemies and some random NPC wants me to pick up some empty vials? I have delved into the deepest darkest dungeons of this world, slayed dragons and sent demons back into the abyss and you want me to go to a crappy village pick up some empty vials for a miniscule amount of gold? Well no... f*** you!
Don't tell me. Once I pick up the vials you will send me out into the wilderness to pick up some flowers to make some potions... and then... make those sickly NPC around this room drink them (I know they are sick because they have the words "Sick Villager" floating above their heads) because going around the room and giving these sick people their medicine is too much effort. WHY DON'T GAME DESIGNERS SEE WHO F***ING LAME THIS IS!!!? =(
Originally posted by kabitoshin Soo.... lets go back to grinding mobs?
Players complain about grinding mobs without any sort of instruction. But they like if the computer tells them to grind mobs. Very strange.
Very funny , no mater how i look , we still stuck with same mob grind , and think old mobs grind was better.
People think that quest grind are faster and less grind , but they just fool themselves .
Only difference are now we get more exp from mobs and less exp to level up.
Quest exp = mobs exp + bonus exp
then
The true exp mobs give = mob exp + bonus (quest exp / number of mobs) .
In the end everything are same old grind .
I doubt people still jump in quest to quests if quests give 0 exp while mobs give 100% exp .
Wasn't it the same , but hey
how many will grind quests if it don't give bonus exp .
I bet 99% of them just abandoned all quest and jump to mobs if you give them chose .
Do poor farmer's quests and kill the mobs (same exp everyone lol) he ask then get little gold as reward or abandoned the lazy farmer and just kill the mobs for exp .
I don't mind simple quests, but a fedex quest is pointless if you have a GPS to show you where to go. The whole point of a fedex type quest is it's not easy to find the person you are looking for. The quest should have directions from various people that guide you around, but don't show you exactly where to go. These type of quests are good as optional things to do at the start of a game like killing ten rats. It shows that your character is just starting out and isn't a full blown adventurer yet.
Everquest had some really neat starting areas. The necromancers had hidden locations in the sewers where you trained. They were full of traps and mobs. I believe that went for any class/race that was evil aligned. If you were a dark elf you were killed on site by default in good aligned areas. Sometimes there were even just certain areas of town or one mob in a town where you were kill on site because of a certain faction.
Originally posted by kabitoshin Soo.... lets go back to grinding mobs?
Players complain about grinding mobs without any sort of instruction. But they like if the computer tells them to grind mobs. Very strange.
Why is it strange? Quests are dressed up excused to kill stuff .. and the dressing up give the illusion of purpose and makes it more fun.
All the SP games do that much better. MMO should learn from that. If you look at a game like Tomb Raider, there are essentially two types of gameplay .. kill everything in sight .. or find the movement/puzzle to get to the other side. It is so good partly because they dress up these two basic "quests" with stories, scripting and events inside and outside of gameplay.
The only quests i semi-liked was at the start of my career. I stepped in to EverQuest world and had no idea what to do.
Then i realized i can talk to people who run around me. They told me i can "talk" to NPCs and they will give quests for my newbie armor. It was exciting, killing those firebeetles and spiders and stuff, getting the drops and then combining them into my true necromancer robe.
But later, when i got to know the game, i did not want to do quests. I could do some, just for the story, or the Epic ones for the Class defining weapon, but they were not meant for leveling.
In today's games you really "must" do quests. You know what i mean - it's best way to get exp, to go further, to get armor, etc.
So that's why I hate questing - they tell you what to do next. You can tell me hundred reasons how questing is not forced, but you know i'm right - nowadays it's the most efficient way to achieve something in game.
For me it's the repetition of quests from area to area. That combined with the restrictiveness people have mentioned, I feel confined to an area that if I don't get them done I won't progress as far or I'll miss a requirement for later on. I want to be set loose out there, but also know doing that will be a grind fest of killing monsters unless you have a quest to back up the xp gain.
Some games claimed to be dynamic in their quests, but few delivered this. Once they added a story element with the npc's actually talking to you, explaining what they want then it became something else.
Secret World is the only one I thought did this well, you didn't just run up to an npc and click accept and run off to wherever the map marker told you to go. With Secret World it took you paying attention to what they said, and sometimes figuring out the clues to the puzzle. Also it was enjoyable to listen to the commentary some of them did. SWTOR tried this, but I wasn't enthralled with the npcs as I was with Secret World, and I found myself clicking through the dialog/movies.
If they want people to quest make it worth something, not just an xp filler. Make it so they matter. Level based games, is where quests are abundant so people didn't have to spend long grinding xp. Games with skill gain through use, like ultima online didn't need quests to achieve what you wanted. Though quests did help you gain skill points to put towards them they were not required so you could spend time developing them as something to do if you wanted; or in Guild Wars example I can just be killing monsters, while there's a quest there to do and come back later on if I chose.
I just don't want to be made to think I have to do them, least let me pick the ones I want catered to how I play.
Level based games, is where quests are abundant so people didn't have to spend long grinding xp. or in Guild Wars example I can just be killing monsters, while there's a quest there to do and come back later on if I chose.
I just don't want to be made to think I have to do them, least let me pick the ones I want catered to how I play.
Okay, first off, you say level based games added quests so people didn't have to spend long hours grinding xp, guess what, they still are by spending long hours grinding quests, except instead of being in 1 set area killing mobs, you're playing fed-ex and walking to one guy and then to a guy right next to him, and then back to the first guy, and then teleport, griffindor, hop-skotch across the world to some guy in a cave who sends you back to the first guy again.
Secondly, Guild Wars 2's "hearts" are the exact same thing as quests. They're just concealed with a different wrapping. So Guild Wars makes it look like you can just stop doing 'quests' and do whatever you want, but it just isn't the case since Hearts are the same thing as traditional quests.
Thirdly, even in most modern mmo's, you don't HAVE to do quests, and you certainly can pick the ones you want to do(minus story quests). Look at FFXIV, fastest way to level actually is skipping side quests(you have to do story quest in that game) fastest way to level is by dungeon grinding now or fate grinding. WoW - again dungeon grinding, hell can even pvp. WildStar - dungeon grinding/adventure grinding/pvping. GW2 - crafting actually was the fastest, pretty funny actually.
So not sure where you seem to think you're made to think you have to do quests. Outside of story quests that is. Most games don't tie key features to the story quests quite like FFXIV, it was very jarring to be honest and i did not enjoy that but /shrug. Sure in alot of games you may have to do 1 chain of quests to unlock a dungeon or raid or something but those are usually the better designed quests in the first place so yea.
In the end , we don't hate quests but don't like to grind quests as only effect way to fill our exp bar.
What we want are quests as pure story teller where we can learn the background stories of the game world that we play,
not exp filler to level up.
Have to say that design levels base on quest are the worst ,
Even single player RPG which focus on story wasn't do like this.
Again though, not many games release in recent time require you to focus heavily on the quests in the way you are describing. Most of the games released in the past couple of years, the best way to level was in fact not by doing quests but by other means.
Level based games, is where quests are abundant so people didn't have to spend long grinding xp. or in Guild Wars example I can just be killing monsters, while there's a quest there to do and come back later on if I chose.
I just don't want to be made to think I have to do them, least let me pick the ones I want catered to how I play.
Okay, first off, you say level based games added quests so people didn't have to spend long hours grinding xp, guess what, they still are by spending long hours grinding quests, except instead of being in 1 set area killing mobs, you're playing fed-ex and walking to one guy and then to a guy right next to him, and then back to the first guy, and then teleport, griffindor, hop-skotch across the world to some guy in a cave who sends you back to the first guy again.
Secondly, Guild Wars 2's "hearts" are the exact same thing as quests. They're just concealed with a different wrapping. So Guild Wars makes it look like you can just stop doing 'quests' and do whatever you want, but it just isn't the case since Hearts are the same thing as traditional quests.
Thirdly, even in most modern mmo's, you don't HAVE to do quests, and you certainly can pick the ones you want to do(minus story quests). Look at FFXIV, fastest way to level actually is skipping side quests(you have to do story quest in that game) fastest way to level is by dungeon grinding now or fate grinding. WoW - again dungeon grinding, hell can even pvp. WildStar - dungeon grinding/adventure grinding/pvping. GW2 - crafting actually was the fastest, pretty funny actually.
So not sure where you seem to think you're made to think you have to do quests. Outside of story quests that is. Most games don't tie key features to the story quests quite like FFXIV, it was very jarring to be honest and i did not enjoy that but /shrug. Sure in alot of games you may have to do 1 chain of quests to unlock a dungeon or raid or something but those are usually the better designed quests in the first place so yea.
Generally you follow a path in modern MMOs. There are quests to guide you down a road. I guess you could grind group instances or PvP instances, but that's not what many people are looking for. They are looking for a non instanced world where they can interact with other people and do what they want weather it be just go out and try to grind some mobs, fish, craft, go try to solo a non instanced dungeon/difficult area, or whatever you want. If you are a person who likes to travel around to different places and see what happens that's not possible anymore. You can only follow quests or do one of the activities you mentioned.
The main problem is the shear quantity of the quests in modern MMOs and the use of the quest hub. When you first enter a new area the player is bombarded by a dozen NPCs with question marks over their heads. Before being allowed to explore one has to spend 15 to 20 minutes talking to NPCs to pick up all the quests. The quests are all kill 5 of these guys and pick up some trash over there and find this waypoint, etc. These feel more like chores than playing a game.
Ten years ago I used to love questing because quests were far and few between. The first thing one did in old school MMOs was explore and then maybe you would come across a quest while exploring. They really need to get back to the exploring element to questing and focus on quality over quantity. Do away with the quest hubs already.
Generally you follow a path in modern MMOs. There are quests to guide you down a road. I guess you could grind group instances or PvP instances, but that's not what many people are looking for. They are looking for a non instanced world where they can interact with other people and do what they want weather it be just go out and try to grind some mobs, fish, craft, go try to solo a non instanced dungeon/difficult area, or whatever you want. If you are a person who likes to travel around to different places and see what happens that's not possible anymore. You can only follow quests or do one of the activities you mentioned.
Sorry but what? Why can you only follow quests or do one of the activities i mentioned? Why can you not just go out and fish, craft, kill mobs, whatever you want? I fail to see whats stopping someone from doing just that. That was my point. Games having quests aren't stopping people from leveling up in different ways. You can still grind xp and in fact alot of the time even just that is faster than doing quests in most games.(Maybe not true in WoW, but it was in FFXIV if you had a group thats for sure, and maybe even without a group.)
Originally posted by Novusod
The main problem is the shear quantity of the quests in modern MMOs and the use of the quest hub. When you first enter a new area the player is bombarded by a dozen NPCs with question marks over their heads. Before being allowed to explore one has to spend 15 to 20 minutes talking to NPCs to pick up all the quests. The quests are all kill 5 of these guys and pick up some trash over there and find this waypoint, etc. These feel more like chores than playing a game.
Ten years ago I used to love questing because quests were far and few between. The first thing one did in old school MMOs was explore and then maybe you would come across a quest while exploring. They really need to get back to the exploring element to questing and focus on quality over quantity. Do away with the quest hubs already.
First off, quest hubs, love em or hate em, just makes sense. When you have a high gathering of a community like a city or village, obviously you're going to find alot of people who have requests in that area as opposed to you exploring the wilderness where its not that often to find someone who needs help. That's just from a purely logical point of view. That aside...
It seems your problem is immersion breaking of the yellow '!' which is a valid concern i'll give you that. That can be solved by devs possibly enabling a toggle feature to turn off the quest markers for players who wish to use such a feature. Sadly this will never be until many players complain about this. But more to the point, you see how I fixed your problem you have with quests and quest hubs without changing the inherent quest system itself by just adding a toggle?
Generally you follow a path in modern MMOs. There are quests to guide you down a road. I guess you could grind group instances or PvP instances, but that's not what many people are looking for. They are looking for a non instanced world where they can interact with other people and do what they want weather it be just go out and try to grind some mobs, fish, craft, go try to solo a non instanced dungeon/difficult area, or whatever you want. If you are a person who likes to travel around to different places and see what happens that's not possible anymore. You can only follow quests or do one of the activities you mentioned.
Sorry but what? Why can you only follow quests or do one of the activities i mentioned? Why can you not just go out and fish, craft, kill mobs, whatever you want? I fail to see whats stopping someone from doing just that. That was my point. Games having quests aren't stopping people from leveling up in different ways. You can still grind xp and in fact alot of the time even just that is faster than doing quests in most games.(Maybe not true in WoW, but it was in FFXIV if you had a group thats for sure, and maybe even without a group.)
In most games it doesn't seem to be the case. Maybe FFXIV is an exception? It's not a western MMO. Most western MMOs are now heavily quest based and allow little in the way of choice.
Why do so many people on these forums hate quests?
I see a lot of folks seethe hatred for quests, I just picture the old D&D cartoon Dungeon Master aproaching them and saying something like. "Oh mighty hero, I have a quest for thee!" and then the player spitting in his face and kicking him in the groin for having the odacity to give them a quest.
I guess I just don't get the hatred.
Quests are part of RPGs. Quests will probably always be part of RPGs. But it's possible to overdo it like MMORPGs do. When people stop reading the story that is presented. When there exist integrated quest helpers to help avoid the "story" and "take away" the exploration. When the only decision to solving a quest is to look up and consider the item reward. What is the point then for this game element?
Generally you follow a path in modern MMOs. There are quests to guide you down a road. I guess you could grind group instances or PvP instances, but that's not what many people are looking for. They are looking for a non instanced world where they can interact with other people and do what they want weather it be just go out and try to grind some mobs, fish, craft, go try to solo a non instanced dungeon/difficult area, or whatever you want. If you are a person who likes to travel around to different places and see what happens that's not possible anymore. You can only follow quests or do one of the activities you mentioned.
Sorry but what? Why can you only follow quests or do one of the activities i mentioned? Why can you not just go out and fish, craft, kill mobs, whatever you want? I fail to see whats stopping someone from doing just that. That was my point. Games having quests aren't stopping people from leveling up in different ways. You can still grind xp and in fact alot of the time even just that is faster than doing quests in most games.(Maybe not true in WoW, but it was in FFXIV if you had a group thats for sure, and maybe even without a group.)
In most games it doesn't seem to be the case. Maybe FFXIV is an exception? It's not a western MMO. Most western MMOs are now heavily quest based and allow little in the way of choice.
Again you're confusing the inclusion of another option with constricting the choice of the player. Just because a game has a ton of quests does not mean you have to do them. This is true for even WoW. You do not have to do the many thousands of quests WoW has and in fact in alot of cases, it is slower leveling if you were to do so. Look up any dozen or so leveling guides for WoW, you'll find alot of them only have you cherry picking a certain few quests to do, and in a very large portion of those guides, they'll say "grind on this mob mob in this area until level xx".
Why do so many people on these forums hate quests?
I see a lot of folks seethe hatred for quests, I just picture the old D&D cartoon Dungeon Master aproaching them and saying something like. "Oh mighty hero, I have a quest for thee!" and then the player spitting in his face and kicking him in the groin for having the odacity to give them a quest.
I guess I just don't get the hatred.
For me,
- Quest in D&D pen and paper: a medium term objective that you have to reach, and it will take you several hours of play (without gaining levels), you will need to investigate, talk to people, kill monsters and visit places. You open a chest at the end of the play session and find 1 magical ring and 1 magical dagger.
E.g. the mayor of a small town asks you to investigate the disappearance of his daughter. You go to the bandit lair and discover they are actually abducting people for a necromancer who lives in a nearby underground cave/base, etc.
- Quest in MMO video games: kill 20 monsters, kill boss monster, area saved, applause, get new helmet from quest giver, move to next area. There is no sense of purpose.
I love myself a good quest, but not the crap we have in MMOs that is wrapped up in a minute and are just here to pass time, get levels and loot.
Even ESO's quests are really "short" snips that take you 15 minutes to wrap up. The Secret World is actually good with that, and you get the same feel as pen and paper.
Generally you follow a path in modern MMOs. There are quests to guide you down a road. I guess you could grind group instances or PvP instances, but that's not what many people are looking for. They are looking for a non instanced world where they can interact with other people and do what they want weather it be just go out and try to grind some mobs, fish, craft, go try to solo a non instanced dungeon/difficult area, or whatever you want. If you are a person who likes to travel around to different places and see what happens that's not possible anymore. You can only follow quests or do one of the activities you mentioned.
Sorry but what? Why can you only follow quests or do one of the activities i mentioned? Why can you not just go out and fish, craft, kill mobs, whatever you want? I fail to see whats stopping someone from doing just that. That was my point. Games having quests aren't stopping people from leveling up in different ways. You can still grind xp and in fact alot of the time even just that is faster than doing quests in most games.(Maybe not true in WoW, but it was in FFXIV if you had a group thats for sure, and maybe even without a group.)
In most games it doesn't seem to be the case. Maybe FFXIV is an exception? It's not a western MMO. Most western MMOs are now heavily quest based and allow little in the way of choice.
Again you're confusing the inclusion of another option with constricting the choice of the player. Just because a game has a ton of quests does not mean you have to do them. This is true for even WoW. You do not have to do the many thousands of quests WoW has and in fact in alot of cases, it is slower leveling if you were to do so. Look up any dozen or so leveling guides for WoW, you'll find alot of them only have you cherry picking a certain few quests to do, and in a very large portion of those guides, they'll say "grind on this mob mob in this area until level xx".
It seems to exclude that type of gameplay though because most people will choose the easy path which is to follow quests. The quests will guide you to the right areas and give you guaranteed rewards. This and instances pretty much remove a lot of the social aspects you would find in game. You won't meet up with people along the way. The ones you do meet up with will be doing quests and will only join with you if you want to do quests. Generally it heavily promotes soloing and not interacting with other people. That means you only options for interaction is to do what you mentioned in grinding instances or PvP. There really aren't as many options as you pretend there to be.
Originally posted by kabitoshin Soo.... lets go back to grinding mobs?
Players complain about grinding mobs without any sort of instruction. But they like if the computer tells them to grind mobs. Very strange.
Why is it strange? Quests are dressed up excused to kill stuff .. and the dressing up give the illusion of purpose and makes it more fun.
All the SP games do that much better. MMO should learn from that. If you look at a game like Tomb Raider, there are essentially two types of gameplay .. kill everything in sight .. or find the movement/puzzle to get to the other side. It is so good partly because they dress up these two basic "quests" with stories, scripting and events inside and outside of gameplay.
That's why it's strange. You can kill stuff no matter what. Why do you need the computer to tell you do it? You don't need the computer to give you purpose either. Make up your own purpose.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
It's one of the current trends, just like sandboxes are currently "in". Or another - "this game has no innovation!!".
100% guarantee that 75% of the people who claim they want no quests will be bitching that there aren't any quests when they play an mmo that truly has no quests and are bored out of their minds.
Why do so many people on these forums hate quests?
I see a lot of folks seethe hatred for quests, I just picture the old D&D cartoon Dungeon Master aproaching them and saying something like. "Oh mighty hero, I have a quest for thee!" and then the player spitting in his face and kicking him in the groin for having the odacity to give them a quest.
I guess I just don't get the hatred.
Because most of the time they are not quests but chores. And these chores number the hundreds to thousands.
Most of the time you need a decent amount of them to level.
Go here and collect this, go here and kill x.
I'd rather have a job board for those who want to make money and they are tasked with collecting "x" if they want and getting paid for it (no xp) or "clear out this cave".
One thing that elder scrolls people might not realize is that when you are exploring that ruin or cave or mine and exterminating the inhabitants, you are really "kill x of y".
But because it is not presented to you in this format you are simply exploring and then defending yourself.
How different would it be if every area had a "go into this cave, kill x falmer, now run back" rinse and repeat.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
It's not strange, it's simple, modern people don't read or immerse anymore, therefore they ignore/don't care about the story, therefore don't get quests and a progressive storyline. It's a bit like saying I don't need to read/il just flick through the pages and look at the page numbers.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Comments
If I played with a DM whose DMing skills ended at "kill ten orcs" I'd quit his games. Which seems to be what people do when MMOs shower them with pointless, boring tasks.
Not going read all other wall of text posts and what I say might of been said.
I hate when questing is forced on you. Like grinding mobs is so low exp to questing that you have to quest almost.
Quests that feel boring with little point. Kill X amount of creatures and come back. Bring me X item from said creature. I don't mind this stuff if it has point and maybe builds up to something meaningful.
I think quests should be like bonus. Best way I can explain this is like back in day with everquest. Low level zone called crush bone. The orc had belt as uncommon drop. You collect them as you kill them and when bags are full you make run to turn them in. You didn't need have the quest before you started and can save up as many as you could hold then do 10x plus turn in's. Got lot exp and random armor.
I'm kinda tainted to most questing since everquest. I wish more games do quests where you didn't need have it before hand to do it. I had tons items back in day in everquest that were lore not knowing what quest they were for.
Also best thing about everquest. There were huge range in quests from real hard to easy.
Simple quests put me on auto pilot and just isn't that fun.
I'm one of those people who detest quests with a passion. At first I enjoyed them. They were rare and fit nicely into the lore and gave you a rational reason to be doing things.
But now MMO's are saturated with them. "please Mr Hero go and pick up my vials from the next village." I mean... really? Here is my toon, decked out in expensive armor that f***ing glows a sickly green color with a giant sword that sucks the lifeforce from my enemies and some random NPC wants me to pick up some empty vials? I have delved into the deepest darkest dungeons of this world, slayed dragons and sent demons back into the abyss and you want me to go to a crappy village pick up some empty vials for a miniscule amount of gold? Well no... f*** you!
Don't tell me. Once I pick up the vials you will send me out into the wilderness to pick up some flowers to make some potions... and then... make those sickly NPC around this room drink them (I know they are sick because they have the words "Sick Villager" floating above their heads) because going around the room and giving these sick people their medicine is too much effort. WHY DON'T GAME DESIGNERS SEE WHO F***ING LAME THIS IS!!!? =(
Very funny , no mater how i look , we still stuck with same mob grind , and think old mobs grind was better.
People think that quest grind are faster and less grind , but they just fool themselves .
Only difference are now we get more exp from mobs and less exp to level up.
Quest exp = mobs exp + bonus exp
then
The true exp mobs give = mob exp + bonus (quest exp / number of mobs) .
In the end everything are same old grind .
I doubt people still jump in quest to quests if quests give 0 exp while mobs give 100% exp .
Wasn't it the same , but hey
how many will grind quests if it don't give bonus exp .
I bet 99% of them just abandoned all quest and jump to mobs if you give them chose .
Do poor farmer's quests and kill the mobs (same exp everyone lol) he ask then get little gold as reward or abandoned the lazy farmer and just kill the mobs for exp .
YOUR CHOSE ?
I don't mind simple quests, but a fedex quest is pointless if you have a GPS to show you where to go. The whole point of a fedex type quest is it's not easy to find the person you are looking for. The quest should have directions from various people that guide you around, but don't show you exactly where to go. These type of quests are good as optional things to do at the start of a game like killing ten rats. It shows that your character is just starting out and isn't a full blown adventurer yet.
Everquest had some really neat starting areas. The necromancers had hidden locations in the sewers where you trained. They were full of traps and mobs. I believe that went for any class/race that was evil aligned. If you were a dark elf you were killed on site by default in good aligned areas. Sometimes there were even just certain areas of town or one mob in a town where you were kill on site because of a certain faction.
Why is it strange? Quests are dressed up excused to kill stuff .. and the dressing up give the illusion of purpose and makes it more fun.
All the SP games do that much better. MMO should learn from that. If you look at a game like Tomb Raider, there are essentially two types of gameplay .. kill everything in sight .. or find the movement/puzzle to get to the other side. It is so good partly because they dress up these two basic "quests" with stories, scripting and events inside and outside of gameplay.
The problem is that most MMOs have you doing meaningless quests that are completely NOT what DM quests are like in pen and paper games.
If every quest were meaningful in terms of advancing a story, that would be a different story, but far too many are 'kill 10 rats'.
The first quest in a starter area should be a general one, like "You have washed up on a strange shore. Find out where the hell you are."
You mean like Tomb Raider?
The only quests i semi-liked was at the start of my career. I stepped in to EverQuest world and had no idea what to do.
Then i realized i can talk to people who run around me. They told me i can "talk" to NPCs and they will give quests for my newbie armor. It was exciting, killing those firebeetles and spiders and stuff, getting the drops and then combining them into my true necromancer robe.
But later, when i got to know the game, i did not want to do quests. I could do some, just for the story, or the Epic ones for the Class defining weapon, but they were not meant for leveling.
In today's games you really "must" do quests. You know what i mean - it's best way to get exp, to go further, to get armor, etc.
So that's why I hate questing - they tell you what to do next. You can tell me hundred reasons how questing is not forced, but you know i'm right - nowadays it's the most efficient way to achieve something in game.
For me it's the repetition of quests from area to area. That combined with the restrictiveness people have mentioned, I feel confined to an area that if I don't get them done I won't progress as far or I'll miss a requirement for later on. I want to be set loose out there, but also know doing that will be a grind fest of killing monsters unless you have a quest to back up the xp gain.
Some games claimed to be dynamic in their quests, but few delivered this. Once they added a story element with the npc's actually talking to you, explaining what they want then it became something else.
Secret World is the only one I thought did this well, you didn't just run up to an npc and click accept and run off to wherever the map marker told you to go. With Secret World it took you paying attention to what they said, and sometimes figuring out the clues to the puzzle. Also it was enjoyable to listen to the commentary some of them did. SWTOR tried this, but I wasn't enthralled with the npcs as I was with Secret World, and I found myself clicking through the dialog/movies.
If they want people to quest make it worth something, not just an xp filler. Make it so they matter. Level based games, is where quests are abundant so people didn't have to spend long grinding xp. Games with skill gain through use, like ultima online didn't need quests to achieve what you wanted. Though quests did help you gain skill points to put towards them they were not required so you could spend time developing them as something to do if you wanted; or in Guild Wars example I can just be killing monsters, while there's a quest there to do and come back later on if I chose.
I just don't want to be made to think I have to do them, least let me pick the ones I want catered to how I play.
Okay, first off, you say level based games added quests so people didn't have to spend long hours grinding xp, guess what, they still are by spending long hours grinding quests, except instead of being in 1 set area killing mobs, you're playing fed-ex and walking to one guy and then to a guy right next to him, and then back to the first guy, and then teleport, griffindor, hop-skotch across the world to some guy in a cave who sends you back to the first guy again.
Secondly, Guild Wars 2's "hearts" are the exact same thing as quests. They're just concealed with a different wrapping. So Guild Wars makes it look like you can just stop doing 'quests' and do whatever you want, but it just isn't the case since Hearts are the same thing as traditional quests.
Thirdly, even in most modern mmo's, you don't HAVE to do quests, and you certainly can pick the ones you want to do(minus story quests). Look at FFXIV, fastest way to level actually is skipping side quests(you have to do story quest in that game) fastest way to level is by dungeon grinding now or fate grinding. WoW - again dungeon grinding, hell can even pvp. WildStar - dungeon grinding/adventure grinding/pvping. GW2 - crafting actually was the fastest, pretty funny actually.
So not sure where you seem to think you're made to think you have to do quests. Outside of story quests that is. Most games don't tie key features to the story quests quite like FFXIV, it was very jarring to be honest and i did not enjoy that but /shrug. Sure in alot of games you may have to do 1 chain of quests to unlock a dungeon or raid or something but those are usually the better designed quests in the first place so yea.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
In the end , we don't hate quests but don't like to grind quests as only effect way to fill our exp bar.
What we want are quests as pure story teller where we can learn the background stories of the game world that we play,
not exp filler to level up.
Have to say that design levels base on quest are the worst ,
Even single player RPG which focus on story wasn't do like this.
Again though, not many games release in recent time require you to focus heavily on the quests in the way you are describing. Most of the games released in the past couple of years, the best way to level was in fact not by doing quests but by other means.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
Generally you follow a path in modern MMOs. There are quests to guide you down a road. I guess you could grind group instances or PvP instances, but that's not what many people are looking for. They are looking for a non instanced world where they can interact with other people and do what they want weather it be just go out and try to grind some mobs, fish, craft, go try to solo a non instanced dungeon/difficult area, or whatever you want. If you are a person who likes to travel around to different places and see what happens that's not possible anymore. You can only follow quests or do one of the activities you mentioned.
The main problem is the shear quantity of the quests in modern MMOs and the use of the quest hub. When you first enter a new area the player is bombarded by a dozen NPCs with question marks over their heads. Before being allowed to explore one has to spend 15 to 20 minutes talking to NPCs to pick up all the quests. The quests are all kill 5 of these guys and pick up some trash over there and find this waypoint, etc. These feel more like chores than playing a game.
Ten years ago I used to love questing because quests were far and few between. The first thing one did in old school MMOs was explore and then maybe you would come across a quest while exploring. They really need to get back to the exploring element to questing and focus on quality over quantity. Do away with the quest hubs already.
Sorry but what? Why can you only follow quests or do one of the activities i mentioned? Why can you not just go out and fish, craft, kill mobs, whatever you want? I fail to see whats stopping someone from doing just that. That was my point. Games having quests aren't stopping people from leveling up in different ways. You can still grind xp and in fact alot of the time even just that is faster than doing quests in most games.(Maybe not true in WoW, but it was in FFXIV if you had a group thats for sure, and maybe even without a group.)
First off, quest hubs, love em or hate em, just makes sense. When you have a high gathering of a community like a city or village, obviously you're going to find alot of people who have requests in that area as opposed to you exploring the wilderness where its not that often to find someone who needs help. That's just from a purely logical point of view. That aside...
It seems your problem is immersion breaking of the yellow '!' which is a valid concern i'll give you that. That can be solved by devs possibly enabling a toggle feature to turn off the quest markers for players who wish to use such a feature. Sadly this will never be until many players complain about this. But more to the point, you see how I fixed your problem you have with quests and quest hubs without changing the inherent quest system itself by just adding a toggle?
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
In most games it doesn't seem to be the case. Maybe FFXIV is an exception? It's not a western MMO. Most western MMOs are now heavily quest based and allow little in the way of choice.
Quests are part of RPGs. Quests will probably always be part of RPGs. But it's possible to overdo it like MMORPGs do. When people stop reading the story that is presented. When there exist integrated quest helpers to help avoid the "story" and "take away" the exploration. When the only decision to solving a quest is to look up and consider the item reward. What is the point then for this game element?
Again you're confusing the inclusion of another option with constricting the choice of the player. Just because a game has a ton of quests does not mean you have to do them. This is true for even WoW. You do not have to do the many thousands of quests WoW has and in fact in alot of cases, it is slower leveling if you were to do so. Look up any dozen or so leveling guides for WoW, you'll find alot of them only have you cherry picking a certain few quests to do, and in a very large portion of those guides, they'll say "grind on this mob mob in this area until level xx".
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
For me,
- Quest in D&D pen and paper: a medium term objective that you have to reach, and it will take you several hours of play (without gaining levels), you will need to investigate, talk to people, kill monsters and visit places. You open a chest at the end of the play session and find 1 magical ring and 1 magical dagger.
E.g. the mayor of a small town asks you to investigate the disappearance of his daughter. You go to the bandit lair and discover they are actually abducting people for a necromancer who lives in a nearby underground cave/base, etc.
- Quest in MMO video games: kill 20 monsters, kill boss monster, area saved, applause, get new helmet from quest giver, move to next area. There is no sense of purpose.
I love myself a good quest, but not the crap we have in MMOs that is wrapped up in a minute and are just here to pass time, get levels and loot.
Even ESO's quests are really "short" snips that take you 15 minutes to wrap up. The Secret World is actually good with that, and you get the same feel as pen and paper.
It seems to exclude that type of gameplay though because most people will choose the easy path which is to follow quests. The quests will guide you to the right areas and give you guaranteed rewards. This and instances pretty much remove a lot of the social aspects you would find in game. You won't meet up with people along the way. The ones you do meet up with will be doing quests and will only join with you if you want to do quests. Generally it heavily promotes soloing and not interacting with other people. That means you only options for interaction is to do what you mentioned in grinding instances or PvP. There really aren't as many options as you pretend there to be.
That's why it's strange. You can kill stuff no matter what. Why do you need the computer to tell you do it? You don't need the computer to give you purpose either. Make up your own purpose.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
It's one of the current trends, just like sandboxes are currently "in". Or another - "this game has no innovation!!".
100% guarantee that 75% of the people who claim they want no quests will be bitching that there aren't any quests when they play an mmo that truly has no quests and are bored out of their minds.
Because most of the time they are not quests but chores. And these chores number the hundreds to thousands.
Most of the time you need a decent amount of them to level.
Go here and collect this, go here and kill x.
I'd rather have a job board for those who want to make money and they are tasked with collecting "x" if they want and getting paid for it (no xp) or "clear out this cave".
One thing that elder scrolls people might not realize is that when you are exploring that ruin or cave or mine and exterminating the inhabitants, you are really "kill x of y".
But because it is not presented to you in this format you are simply exploring and then defending yourself.
How different would it be if every area had a "go into this cave, kill x falmer, now run back" rinse and repeat.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D