Decide if you want to share spot with others who come along
Decide if you want to move on and try killing different mobs.
Decide if you want to go explore and see what's over the next hill (maybe a dungeon or desert waste land)
When full take loot and sell it to the vendor.
Possible turn in items for repeat quests (faction/exp) if you can find a quest giver
Maybe head out and try going to a different area
B. Questing
Follow indicators around the world like a cat being led by a string and follow instructions
Most of your list isn't a decision (logging in), isn't related to the activity (deciding to explore instead of grind), or is duplicate (where to go and what to kill). Maybe a couple of those things are legit (figure out what to kill, travel back to sell stuff).
Then on top of that you repeated the obvious mistake of ignoring all the thinking and variety that I literally just handed you by listing them in my prior post. I mean I understand it must be hard when your personal beliefs are directly disputed by facts and reality. But you can't just go around ignoring reality because you consider it inconvenient.
When you add in the 2 legit things you've brought up, questing still provides about double the decision points of grinding.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Decide if you want to share spot with others who come along
Decide if you want to move on and try killing different mobs.
Decide if you want to go explore and see what's over the next hill (maybe a dungeon or desert waste land)
When full take loot and sell it to the vendor.
Possible turn in items for repeat quests (faction/exp) if you can find a quest giver
Maybe head out and try going to a different area
B. Questing
Follow indicators around the world like a cat being led by a string and follow instructions
Most of your list isn't a decision (logging in), isn't related to the activity (deciding to explore instead of grind), or is duplicate (where to go and what to kill). Maybe a couple of those things are legit (figure out what to kill, travel back to sell stuff).
Then on top of that you repeated the obvious mistake of ignoring all the thinking and variety that I literally just handed you by listing them in my prior post. I mean I understand it must be hard when your personal beliefs are directly disputed by facts and reality. But you can't just go around ignoring reality because you consider it inconvenient.
When you add in the 2 legit things you've brought up, questing still provides about double the decision points of grinding.
The things you pointed out in your post are not decisions. They are a direct path to follow along through the game that has been decided for you. Other people have pointed it out, but you still consider it decisions to make. There are no decisions to make in a predefined quest path. You simple follow it along until you reach the end of the game.
The things you pointed out in your post are not decisions. They are a direct path to follow along through the game that has been decided for you. Other people have pointed it out, but you still consider it decisions to make. There are no decisions to make in a predefined quest path. You simple follow it along until you reach the end of the game.
It was called mindless and I was pointing out how there was thought involved, because you have to absorb information and react to it. You have to absorb and react to fewer things with grinding (because you're mostly spending your time fighting the same mobs in the same spot, without change.)
So if you want to pretend that reacting to information isn't a decision, feel free (though that's not really correct.)
But the fact remains that grinding is quite obviously more mindless than questing.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The things you pointed out in your post are not decisions. They are a direct path to follow along through the game that has been decided for you. Other people have pointed it out, but you still consider it decisions to make. There are no decisions to make in a predefined quest path. You simple follow it along until you reach the end of the game.
It was called mindless and I was pointing out how there was thought involved, because you have to absorb information and react to it. You have to absorb and react to fewer things with grinding (because you're mostly spending your time fighting the same mobs in the same spot, without change.)
So if you want to pretend that reacting to information isn't a decision, feel free (though that's not really correct.)
But the fact remains that grinding is quite obviously more mindless than questing.
In the quest you don't have to absorb any information. All you have to do is follow the markers around and possible some very simple instructions that would likely insult the intelligence of most people. Your opinion before was that quests are just a filler to get you quickly to the real game (end game). That is exactly what they are because that is what they are coded to be. They are mostly mindless tasks that don't require you to read at all. I don't know how many ways I can say this, but if there are markers you don't read because you don't need to.
As I indicated there are a lot of decisions that go into camping a mob if the game is setup properly. Decisions where there is no clear path to follow and no clear right or wrong decision. As mentioned in another thread it is like comparing Dark Souls to an early Final Fantasy game. In one you can basically go anywhere and try to kill anything. In the other you are setup to follow a very specific path in which the developers don't want you to deviate from.
The things you pointed out in your post are not decisions. They are a direct path to follow along through the game that has been decided for you. Other people have pointed it out, but you still consider it decisions to make. There are no decisions to make in a predefined quest path. You simple follow it along until you reach the end of the game.
It was called mindless and I was pointing out how there was thought involved, because you have to absorb information and react to it. You have to absorb and react to fewer things with grinding (because you're mostly spending your time fighting the same mobs in the same spot, without change.)
So if you want to pretend that reacting to information isn't a decision, feel free (though that's not really correct.)
But the fact remains that grinding is quite obviously more mindless than questing.
I have pointed out before that there can be a lot more to 'grinding' than just killing creature after creature. Even if you are at a static camp you can work on efficiency, track respawns, adjust your rotations to optimize pull by pull, manage your resource regeneration (downtime), etc. There are plenty of ways to be engaged while grinding. If you choose not to push yourself then I can imagine you would believe questing to be less 'mindless'.
IMO how that level of engagement compares to the engagement of questing is proportional to the effort you expend, but it remains subjective regardless. Personally I am much more engaged when grinding similar to the way I am more engaged playing an RTS game as opposed to an RPG. Grinding feels much more like I'm actually playing a video game and challenging myself. Questing never feels challenging and frankly feels completely arbitrary to me.
YMMV obviously, but I believe that it's entirely subjective at the least.
The things you pointed out in your post are not decisions. They are a direct path to follow along through the game that has been decided for you. Other people have pointed it out, but you still consider it decisions to make. There are no decisions to make in a predefined quest path. You simple follow it along until you reach the end of the game.
It was called mindless and I was pointing out how there was thought involved, because you have to absorb information and react to it. You have to absorb and react to fewer things with grinding (because you're mostly spending your time fighting the same mobs in the same spot, without change.)
So if you want to pretend that reacting to information isn't a decision, feel free (though that's not really correct.)
But the fact remains that grinding is quite obviously more mindless than questing.
I have pointed out before that there can be a lot more to 'grinding' than just killing creature after creature. Even if you are at a static camp you can work on efficiency, track respawns, adjust your rotations to optimize pull by pull, manage your resource regeneration (downtime), etc. There are plenty of ways to be engaged while grinding. If you choose not to push yourself then I can imagine you would believe questing to be less 'mindless'.
Sorry but this just seems like a group of words all describing working on a spreadsheet.
Except the last one, 'manage your resource regeneration'... which sounds like waiting, much like sanitation engineer means janitor.
So you enjoy waiting and spreadsheets. I know a way you can save on a sub and actually make money at your pastime. It's called office work.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
The things you pointed out in your post are not decisions. They are a direct path to follow along through the game that has been decided for you. Other people have pointed it out, but you still consider it decisions to make. There are no decisions to make in a predefined quest path. You simple follow it along until you reach the end of the game.
It was called mindless and I was pointing out how there was thought involved, because you have to absorb information and react to it. You have to absorb and react to fewer things with grinding (because you're mostly spending your time fighting the same mobs in the same spot, without change.)
So if you want to pretend that reacting to information isn't a decision, feel free (though that's not really correct.)
But the fact remains that grinding is quite obviously more mindless than questing.
I have pointed out before that there can be a lot more to 'grinding' than just killing creature after creature. Even if you are at a static camp you can work on efficiency, track respawns, adjust your rotations to optimize pull by pull, manage your resource regeneration (downtime), etc. There are plenty of ways to be engaged while grinding. If you choose not to push yourself then I can imagine you would believe questing to be less 'mindless'.
Sorry but this just seems like a group of words all describing working on a spreadsheet.
Except the last one, 'manage your resource regeneration'... which sounds like waiting, much like sanitation engineer means janitor.
So you enjoy waiting and spreadsheets. I know a way you can save on a sub and actually make money at your pastime. It's called office work.
To me it sounds more involved than that, but it's still more thinking than quests. Quests are the antipodes of thinking in modern games. If you are managing time and working on a spread sheet you are thinking and making decisions. If you are questing you are just mindlessly following a predefined path. That doesn't mean questing has to be that way, but as long as there are quest markers/GPS that's the way it will be IMO.
Sorry, but questing in GW2 is definitely not like that. Not all "modern" games are like what you say.
I'm gonna partially agree though for once, I miss the time when the quest objectives where in the quest TEXT and you had to search and think a bit. To be clear, I miss questing like it was in vanilla WoW up to WotLK, without the markers on the map and all that crap.
That doesn't mean that I'd go back to a grind based game though.
ha!
I NEVER missed that.
sorry I just had to say that. Questing in games have always been a thorn in my A
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Sorry, but questing in GW2 is definitely not like that. Not all "modern" games are like what you say.
I'm gonna partially agree though for once, I miss the time when the quest objectives where in the quest TEXT and you had to search and think a bit. To be clear, I miss questing like it was in vanilla WoW up to WotLK, without the markers on the map and all that crap.
That doesn't mean that I'd go back to a grind based game though.
ha!
I NEVER missed that.
sorry I just had to say that. Questing in games have always been a thorn in my A
The problem is, it's all or nothing, and nowadays, it's more like "nothing" sadly.
Asheron's Call's quests were all of epic proportions, with no "!" over the NPC heads, clues and hints you had to find, dangerous dungeons with complicated mechanisms (and that was not "beat that scripted boss"). Aerfalle took TWO MONTHS to be solved after its release. People knowing those quests and running them were sought for.
There are no such quests today. It's all go kill 10 goblins at the marked spot.
I'm sure there's room for both types of quests.
It seems that AC was a fair amount like EQ in some ways. The more difficult quests were only solved by a few people on the server usually. The easy quests anyone could complete fairly easy like turn in orc belts or turn in gnoll teeth. The difference was that there was no real easy way to figure out what quests were available, how to trigger the right conversation (keyword), and how to keep track of it if it was a multi step quest. The main problem though IMO is that the reward for anything but the highest level quests were usually not worth doing compared to grinding. I think if quests were more rewarding then people would have been more likely to put the effort into finding them.
Sorry, but questing in GW2 is definitely not like that. Not all "modern" games are like what you say.
I'm gonna partially agree though for once, I miss the time when the quest objectives where in the quest TEXT and you had to search and think a bit. To be clear, I miss questing like it was in vanilla WoW up to WotLK, without the markers on the map and all that crap.
That doesn't mean that I'd go back to a grind based game though.
ha!
I NEVER missed that.
sorry I just had to say that. Questing in games have always been a thorn in my A
The problem is, it's all or nothing, and nowadays, it's more like "nothing" sadly.
Asheron's Call's quests were all of epic proportions, with no "!" over the NPC heads, clues and hints you had to find, dangerous dungeons with complicated mechanisms (and that was not "beat that scripted boss"). Aerfalle took TWO MONTHS to be solved after its release. People knowing those quests and running them were sought for.
There are no such quests today. It's all go kill 10 goblins at the marked spot.
I'm sure there's room for both types of quests.
I am still waiting for Player Created Quests
the only 'questing' engine I am really that interested in exploring
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
In the quest you don't have to absorb any information. All you have to do is follow the markers around and possible some very simple instructions that would likely insult the intelligence of most people. Your opinion before was that quests are just a filler to get you quickly to the real game (end game). That is exactly what they are because that is what they are coded to be. They are mostly mindless tasks that don't require you to read at all. I don't know how many ways I can say this, but if there are markers you don't read because you don't need to.
As I indicated there are a lot of decisions that go into camping a mob if the game is setup properly. Decisions where there is no clear path to follow and no clear right or wrong decision. As mentioned in another thread it is like comparing Dark Souls to an early Final Fantasy game. In one you can basically go anywhere and try to kill anything. In the other you are setup to follow a very specific path in which the developers don't want you to deviate from.
So you don't have to absorb any information, you only have to follow markers (absorb information and react) and instructions (absorb information and react). <- Why do you do this sort of thing? There are no advantages to be gained by ignoring reality.
It wasn't my opinion that they were "filler". I said it wasn't wrong to call them that, but that it's a negative twist on their distinctly beneficial purpose (to fill the game with content.) The alternative (being devoid of content and extra repetitive) wasn't very popular.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The problem isn't true quest. Its that "quest" that are just mindless task. Mindless task are just as mindless as grinding MOB. The only reason there is an acceptance of quest is because they give out enough experience to level you quickly. For whatever reason every MOB grind games makes MOBs have poor experience comparatively. The stigma is with the length of the grind not the type of grind. Seems like a big back tract to say players would choose to do something that they don't want to do.
The reason why I call it filler because it generally is literally mindless filler. Its not true content. Its just generic task laid in my path to slow my leveling. Not all content is created equally. If I was given the choice to grind 50 mobs in place or kill 20 mobs, run to bob to deliver his shit, pick up 5 mushrooms and whatever dumb task these games give you... I would grind if the combat is engaging. Good combat > errand boy "hero." If given the choice of horizontal progression with anywhere anytime I choose optional quest/task, class quest and lore quest I would go that route over both.
Again, they aren't "just a mindless task". They represent variety. They avoid repetition.
When's the last time you heard a player use the word "repetitive" in a positive light?
Which of these activities is more mindless?
A. Grinding
Figure out to kill this mob type.
Now just keep doing that.
B. Questing
Get all the quests in the hub.
Figure out which one is closest.
Travel to that location.
Figure out what you need to do (the activity will vary.)
Figure out how to kill the mobs in your way (the mobs will vary.)
Figure out where to go next (the next quest might be near.) (Repeat the travel > activity > mobs steps for each new quest)
When done with enough quests, navigate back to town and pick your reward.
Questing doesn't require a lot of thinking in total, but if you're going to call questing "mindless" when it in fact requires many easy little bits of thinking, then what are you going to call grinding which requires substantially less thinking?
Variety means nothing if it sucks in general. I would take the same good meal everyday over 7 that taste awful. Neither are acceptable. With quest majority of what you're doing us generic task with a few specks of gold here and there. Being told to pluck mushrooms is not fun because it's different from delivering mushrooms.
The things you pointed out in your post are not decisions. They are a direct path to follow along through the game that has been decided for you. Other people have pointed it out, but you still consider it decisions to make. There are no decisions to make in a predefined quest path. You simple follow it along until you reach the end of the game.
It was called mindless and I was pointing out how there was thought involved, because you have to absorb information and react to it. You have to absorb and react to fewer things with grinding (because you're mostly spending your time fighting the same mobs in the same spot, without change.)
So if you want to pretend that reacting to information isn't a decision, feel free (though that's not really correct.)
But the fact remains that grinding is quite obviously more mindless than questing.
I have pointed out before that there can be a lot more to 'grinding' than just killing creature after creature. Even if you are at a static camp you can work on efficiency, track respawns, adjust your rotations to optimize pull by pull, manage your resource regeneration (downtime), etc. There are plenty of ways to be engaged while grinding. If you choose not to push yourself then I can imagine you would believe questing to be less 'mindless'.
Sorry but this just seems like a group of words all describing working on a spreadsheet.
Except the last one, 'manage your resource regeneration'... which sounds like waiting, much like sanitation engineer means janitor.
So you enjoy waiting and spreadsheets. I know a way you can save on a sub and actually make money at your pastime. It's called office work.
To me it sounds more involved than that, but it's still more thinking than quests. Quests are the antipodes of thinking in modern games. If you are managing time and working on a spread sheet you are thinking and making decisions. If you are questing you are just mindlessly following a predefined path. That doesn't mean questing has to be that way, but as long as there are quest markers/GPS that's the way it will be IMO.
Depends on how much you invest in the quests. If all you do is run up and click click click, then yea, almost anything is more thought provoking. But as I play ESO I read the quests, and I make decisions based on that text. If it gives a choice I weigh the options, if it does not, and I don't want the outcome, then I will abandon the quest. Basically just walking away from the person that wants my character to do something he wouldn't do. There's enough content now that I can make that choice and not hurt my end level.
It's as I keep saying in most of my replies on this site. It's how much you're willing to invest. How much you're willing to play outside the expected parameters. You don't have to play the same way as the crowd ahead of you and trailing you.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Variety means nothing if it sucks in general. I would take the same good meal everyday over 7 that taste awful. Neither are acceptable. With quest majority of what you're doing us generic task with a few specks of gold here and there. Being told to pluck mushrooms is not fun because it's different from delivering mushrooms.
No, variety always makes things better. Content may still suck overall, but it'll suck less if it's varied.
This goes back to the earlier points about how the most common way fun is experienced is patterns mastery. History has shown us time and again that people prefer varied entertainment over repetitive entertainment.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I have pointed out before that there can be a lot more to 'grinding' than just killing creature after creature. Even if you are at a static camp you can work on efficiency, track respawns, adjust your rotations to optimize pull by pull, manage your resource regeneration (downtime), etc. There are plenty of ways to be engaged while grinding. If you choose not to push yourself then I can imagine you would believe questing to be less 'mindless'.
IMO how that level of engagement compares to the engagement of questing is proportional to the effort you expend, but it remains subjective regardless. Personally I am much more engaged when grinding similar to the way I am more engaged playing an RTS game as opposed to an RPG. Grinding feels much more like I'm actually playing a video game and challenging myself. Questing never feels challenging and frankly feels completely arbitrary to me.
YMMV obviously, but I believe that it's entirely subjective at the least.
Well the conversation has been questing vs. grinding. It's a comparison. So anything which applies to both doesn't really factor into the comparison.
So while everything you listed would indeed making grinding more palatable, it also makes quest-based gameplay more palatable to the same degree.
The challenge of the mobs in question is really just a separate discussion. I'm all for games using CoH-style difficulty sliders to let players tailor the challenge to their preference, but that has nothing to do with quests vs. grind (which is mostly a discussion of variety vs. repetition.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Variety means nothing if it sucks in general. I would take the same good meal everyday over 7 that taste awful. Neither are acceptable. With quest majority of what you're doing us generic task with a few specks of gold here and there. Being told to pluck mushrooms is not fun because it's different from delivering mushrooms.
No, variety always makes things better. Content may still suck overall, but it'll suck less if it's varied.
This goes back to the earlier points about how the most common way fun is experienced is patterns mastery. History has shown us time and again that people prefer varied entertainment over repetitive entertainment.
I don't really want to defend grind, but you still haven't answered how having a set path that you can't really vary from is better than being able to wander off in any direction you like and kill anything you like to. In essence grinding is questing. I've already explained why. You have to go kill something and then you take it and sell items to the vendor. Old games had the option to do similar quests to the ones you mentioned and I've provided examples on that.
You have provided examples that say questing is more varied because you have to go to x kill y and go back. The problem is that all the quests use almost the same exact game mechanic. That is not any more variation then wandering off to different places, killing mobs, and selling varying different loot. It is mostly the same thing except you have very little choice in it. The quest chains all determine exactly where you go, what you kill, when you do it, and what reward you get. They are actually very similar in nature, but one offers the choice to kill what you want how many times you want. You could go and kill the city guards if are powerful enough and sell their swords. You might take a faction hit, but it's your choice.
The things you pointed out in your post are not decisions. They are a direct path to follow along through the game that has been decided for you. Other people have pointed it out, but you still consider it decisions to make. There are no decisions to make in a predefined quest path. You simple follow it along until you reach the end of the game.
It was called mindless and I was pointing out how there was thought involved, because you have to absorb information and react to it. You have to absorb and react to fewer things with grinding (because you're mostly spending your time fighting the same mobs in the same spot, without change.)
So if you want to pretend that reacting to information isn't a decision, feel free (though that's not really correct.)
But the fact remains that grinding is quite obviously more mindless than questing.
I have pointed out before that there can be a lot more to 'grinding' than just killing creature after creature. Even if you are at a static camp you can work on efficiency, track respawns, adjust your rotations to optimize pull by pull, manage your resource regeneration (downtime), etc. There are plenty of ways to be engaged while grinding. If you choose not to push yourself then I can imagine you would believe questing to be less 'mindless'.
Sorry but this just seems like a group of words all describing working on a spreadsheet.
Except the last one, 'manage your resource regeneration'... which sounds like waiting, much like sanitation engineer means janitor.
So you enjoy waiting and spreadsheets. I know a way you can save on a sub and actually make money at your pastime. It's called office work.
To me it sounds more involved than that, but it's still more thinking than quests. Quests are the antipodes of thinking in modern games. If you are managing time and working on a spread sheet you are thinking and making decisions. If you are questing you are just mindlessly following a predefined path. That doesn't mean questing has to be that way, but as long as there are quest markers/GPS that's the way it will be IMO.
Depends on how much you invest in the quests. If all you do is run up and click click click, then yea, almost anything is more thought provoking. But as I play ESO I read the quests, and I make decisions based on that text. If it gives a choice I weigh the options, if it does not, and I don't want the outcome, then I will abandon the quest. Basically just walking away from the person that wants my character to do something he wouldn't do. There's enough content now that I can make that choice and not hurt my end level.
It's as I keep saying in most of my replies on this site. It's how much you're willing to invest. How much you're willing to play outside the expected parameters. You don't have to play the same way as the crowd ahead of you and trailing you.
This is exactly what I said in the other paragraph that you didn't quote: that how grindy/immersive an activity feels depends on how personally engaged you are in the activity.
Then you make some snide remark that I'm turning an MMO into and accounting job. . .
Then you comment saying the exact same thing I said just with questing as the object of your immersion whereas I said grinding was more immersive to me personally.
The is the reason I made an explicit effort to emphasize that it is subjective. Even though we are on opposite sides of the fence the principle applies.
This is the point where I say something like: "so you enjoy reading and thinking critically about what you read, I know a way you can save yourself a sub and actually make money in your pastime. It's called a proof reader."
I don't really want to defend grind, but you still haven't answered how having a set path that you can't really vary from is better than being able to wander off in any direction you like and kill anything you like to. In essence grinding is questing. I've already explained why. You have to go kill something and then you take it and sell items to the vendor. Old games had the option to do similar quests to the ones you mentioned and I've provided examples on that.
You have provided examples that say questing is more varied because you have to go to x kill y and go back. The problem is that all the quests use almost the same exact game mechanic. That is not any more variation then wandering off to different places, killing mobs, and selling varying different loot. It is mostly the same thing except you have very little choice in it. The quest chains all determine exactly where you go, what you kill, when you do it, and what reward you get. They are actually very similar in nature, but one offers the choice to kill what you want how many times you want. You could go and kill the city guards if are powerful enough and sell their swords. You might take a faction hit, but it's your choice.
"Variety" has been the constant reason I've cited for questing, including the post you just responded to.
You can vary the path. While it may be fun to exaggerate these games as "linear", that's just hyperbole. There are a lot of quest hubs and a lot of zones to choose from in well-executed questing games, so you actually do have a lot of choice.
The activities are objectively more varied. The mob types are objectively more varied. This provides objectively less repetition than a game without quests. This provides objectively more pattern mastery (the most common form of fun) for players. And that's the root cause why the games with quests have objectively been more successful than those without.
Grinding isn't questing. Not only is variety not being encouraged, it's being discouraged. (You literally will make worse XP/hour if you pursue variety than if you pursue repetition in a grind-based game.)
Quests do not all use the same mechanic. A quest which has you playing Plants vs. Zombies is different from one where you do a bombing run, which is different from a kill quest against Mob A which is still slightly different from a kill quest against Mob B (where the optimal way of handling Mob B's abilities is different.)
Again, if you want to pretend variety never exists, why stop where you're stopping? Why not summarize all games as "hitting buttons to do stuff" and because they're all summarized by that same sentence they must have zero variety... If you're going to be arbitrary, why draw the line at quests?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
"Variety" has been the constant reason I've cited for questing, including the post you just responded to.
Still on this vein of misinformation?
Here is the single sentence of clarity to point out the fundamental problem of this argument.
What you are arguing as the merit for questing is simply the idea that people get a bonus for changing activities up every so often, questing itself has nothing to do with it.
You can make an open system that has XP bonus and degradation that would instill the same concept into the game without the need of railroading the players into specific chain of tasks to repeat.
If the goal is to reward players seeking variety, that is very doable without quests. Saying they are the be-all solution and source of the variety on display is very simply, wrong.
The complaint of quests being themselves grindy comes from the frequently used structure in games of quests being one of several core objectives and gameplay elements strung together in a chain. While "quests do not all use the same mechanic" they do use a sequence of the same mechanics that ultimately loop many times over during the course of play.
Grinding may not be questing, but the format of many MMORPGs quests are certainly a grind.
The "more variety" shtick was also proven false a long time back, with the revelation that the only way you establish that claim is through the focus on a very specific component of the gameplay. It's a no-brainer that killing two different creatures is more variety than killing one, quests are not the impetus for that condition.
As the for "a lot of quest hubs and a lot of zones" claim, that's really not as true as you seem to want it to be. In many MMOs you might use as an example, most of them are not simply railroading the quest chain, but you are lead through a very finite and controlled set of zones. The examples to the contrary in MMORPGs is quite rare, and even WoW doesn't make that good of a show for it as if you're skipping between quest hubs you are also typically jumping in quest level (not to mention you basically just migrated from green to brown scenery or vice versa to do the same stuff). Just because you can skip things to do something else does not mean it's a well supported feature or actually offering any variety.
What it properly boils down to is not questing, but rewarded gameplay through bonus experience and loot from any variety of systems or mechanics. It can be as hidden as simply scaling rewards against activities and players automatically in the background to incentivize changing it up, or to transparent "you will get this" as a bonus style.
Post edited by Deivos on
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
"Variety" has been the constant reason I've cited for questing, including the post you just responded to.
Still on this vein of misinformation?
Here is the single sentence of clarity to point out the fundamental problem of this argument.
What you are arguing as the merit for questing is simply the idea that people get a bonus for changing activities up every so often, questing itself has nothing to do with it.
You can make an open system that has XP bonus and degradation that would instill the same concept into the game without the need of railroading the players into specific chain of tasks to repeat.
If the goal is to reward players seeking variety, that is very doable without quests. Saying they are the be-all solution and source of the variety on display is very simply, wrong.
The complaint of quests being themselves grindy comes from the frequently used structure in games of quests being one of several core objectives and gameplay elements strung together in a chain. While "quests do not all use the same mechanic" they do use a sequence of the same mechanics that ultimately loop many times over during the course of play.
Grinding may not be questing, but the format of many MMORPGs quests are certainly a grind.
The "more variety" shtick was also proven false a long time back, with the revelation that the only way you establish that claim is through the focus on a very specific component of the gameplay. It's a no-brainer that killing two different creatures is more variety than killing one, quests are not the impetus for that condition.
As the for "a lot of quest hubs and a lot of zones" claim, that's really not as true as you seem to want it to be. In many MMOs you might use as an example, most of them are not simply railroading the quest chain, but you are lead through a very finite and controlled set of zones. The examples to the contrary in MMORPGs is quite rare, and even WoW doesn't make that good of a show for it as if you're skipping between quest hubs you are also typically jumping in quest level (not to mention you basically just migrated from green to brown scenery or vice versa to do the same stuff). Just because you can skip things to do something else does not mean it's a well supported feature or actually offering any variety.
What it properly boils down to is not questing, but rewarded gameplay through bonus experience and loot from any variety of systems or mechanics. It can be as hidden as simply scaling rewards against activities and players automatically in the background to incentivize changing it up, or to transparent "you will get this" as a bonus style.
I completely agree 100%. However, why is it the games responsibility to get you to change activities. If you're having fun doing something, and it becomes less and less rewarding, it stops being fun. That's frustrating, then you have to go find something you don't like doing as much, just to continue the progression rate you were already on doing something you liked.
I completely agree 100%. However, why is it the games responsibility to get you to change activities. If you're having fun doing something, and it becomes less and less rewarding, it stops being fun. That's frustrating, then you have to go find something you don't like doing as much, just to continue the progression rate you were already on doing something you liked.
Because people seek the path of least resistance most often, not challenge.
EDIT: What I mean by this is that there are a lot of people buying into whatever is the most convenient thing to do and repeating that as a meta-gamed way to achieve what they desire, generally top level+max gear, rather than simply for the sake of playing the game. These are the same people that then turn around and complain there's no variety, because they damned all the variety in the pursuit of "the end".
basically, the average player is stupid and they need to be coaxed into having fun because they will intentionally hurt their own capacity for entertainment otherwise, and very few will strike upon seeking the entertainment they actually desire.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
I completely agree 100%. However, why is it the games responsibility to get you to change activities. If you're having fun doing something, and it becomes less and less rewarding, it stops being fun. That's frustrating, then you have to go find something you don't like doing as much, just to continue the progression rate you were already on doing something you liked.
Because people seek the path of least resistance most often, not challenge.
EDIT: What I mean by this is that there are a lot of people buying into whatever is the most convenient thing to do and repeating that as a meta-gamed way to achieve what they desire, generally top level+max gear, rather than simply for the sake of playing the game. These are the same people that then turn around and complain there's no variety, because they damned all the variety in the pursuit of "the end".
basically, the average player is stupid and they need to be coaxed into having fun because they will intentionally hurt their own capacity for entertainment otherwise, and very few will strike upon seeking the entertainment they actually desire.
Is it not the sad truth.
They rush, ignore and waste a whole game to get to the mythical "End Game"
I sometimes wonder why these MMORPG makers even bother making a world. It seems that DDO had the right concept all along, it just wasn't at the right time.
I completely agree 100%. However, why is it the games responsibility to get you to change activities. If you're having fun doing something, and it becomes less and less rewarding, it stops being fun. That's frustrating, then you have to go find something you don't like doing as much, just to continue the progression rate you were already on doing something you liked.
One reality of game design is if you provide players a way to ruin their own fun, they will do so; then they'll complain your game sucks.
With fairly obvious things like players failing to play skillfully and losing, players will complain that it's the game at fault*. So naturally they're even more likely to do so when it's something subtler like the game letting them grind mobs endlessly for full reward.
That's why it's the game's responsibility to enforce gameplay variety.
(* An example of this is Homing Shot from SW:Battlefront. Players complained about this auto-tracking 1-hit-kill projectile as being overpowered. But it wasn't actually overpowered, it was underpowered. By running laterally to the homing shot you could dodge it 100% of the time. This made it far less effective than the other slot options.
Players were not fixing this falsely-perceived imbalance themselves (by learning to dodge it), so the game nerfed an already-underpowered weapon further, because it's not like you can just expect players to be reasonable, rational people. They will behave irrationally, keep dying to homing shot repeatedly, and then accuse the game of being at fault.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
While it's nice you agree for once and repeat what I already wrote, I find it a tad baffling given your previous argument has been trying to establish how players perpetually seek a form of challenge that is directly opposed to such a mindset. Bit of dissonance there.
I know it's because the reality is that players are deriving entertainment from many types of fun, and that the consequence is that entertainment is the blending of these forms to give a more cohesive user experience.
Just seems there's an apparent disconnect when one wants to simplify entertainment to a single primary value for entertainment which people seek, and then argue that people are predisposed to avoiding it. Weirdly contradictory logic.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Comments
Then on top of that you repeated the obvious mistake of ignoring all the thinking and variety that I literally just handed you by listing them in my prior post. I mean I understand it must be hard when your personal beliefs are directly disputed by facts and reality. But you can't just go around ignoring reality because you consider it inconvenient.
When you add in the 2 legit things you've brought up, questing still provides about double the decision points of grinding.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
So if you want to pretend that reacting to information isn't a decision, feel free (though that's not really correct.)
But the fact remains that grinding is quite obviously more mindless than questing.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
As I indicated there are a lot of decisions that go into camping a mob if the game is setup properly. Decisions where there is no clear path to follow and no clear right or wrong decision. As mentioned in another thread it is like comparing Dark Souls to an early Final Fantasy game. In one you can basically go anywhere and try to kill anything. In the other you are setup to follow a very specific path in which the developers don't want you to deviate from.
IMO how that level of engagement compares to the engagement of questing is proportional to the effort you expend, but it remains subjective regardless. Personally I am much more engaged when grinding similar to the way I am more engaged playing an RTS game as opposed to an RPG. Grinding feels much more like I'm actually playing a video game and challenging myself. Questing never feels challenging and frankly feels completely arbitrary to me.
YMMV obviously, but I believe that it's entirely subjective at the least.
Except the last one, 'manage your resource regeneration'... which sounds like waiting, much like sanitation engineer means janitor.
So you enjoy waiting and spreadsheets. I know a way you can save on a sub and actually make money at your pastime. It's called office work.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
I NEVER missed that.
sorry I just had to say that. Questing in games have always been a thorn in my A
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
the only 'questing' engine I am really that interested in exploring
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
It wasn't my opinion that they were "filler". I said it wasn't wrong to call them that, but that it's a negative twist on their distinctly beneficial purpose (to fill the game with content.) The alternative (being devoid of content and extra repetitive) wasn't very popular.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It's as I keep saying in most of my replies on this site. It's how much you're willing to invest. How much you're willing to play outside the expected parameters. You don't have to play the same way as the crowd ahead of you and trailing you.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
This goes back to the earlier points about how the most common way fun is experienced is patterns mastery. History has shown us time and again that people prefer varied entertainment over repetitive entertainment.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Well the conversation has been questing vs. grinding. It's a comparison. So anything which applies to both doesn't really factor into the comparison.
So while everything you listed would indeed making grinding more palatable, it also makes quest-based gameplay more palatable to the same degree.
The challenge of the mobs in question is really just a separate discussion. I'm all for games using CoH-style difficulty sliders to let players tailor the challenge to their preference, but that has nothing to do with quests vs. grind (which is mostly a discussion of variety vs. repetition.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You have provided examples that say questing is more varied because you have to go to x kill y and go back. The problem is that all the quests use almost the same exact game mechanic. That is not any more variation then wandering off to different places, killing mobs, and selling varying different loot. It is mostly the same thing except you have very little choice in it. The quest chains all determine exactly where you go, what you kill, when you do it, and what reward you get. They are actually very similar in nature, but one offers the choice to kill what you want how many times you want. You could go and kill the city guards if are powerful enough and sell their swords. You might take a faction hit, but it's your choice.
Then you make some snide remark that I'm turning an MMO into and accounting job. . .
Then you comment saying the exact same thing I said just with questing as the object of your immersion whereas I said grinding was more immersive to me personally.
The is the reason I made an explicit effort to emphasize that it is subjective. Even though we are on opposite sides of the fence the principle applies.
This is the point where I say something like: "so you enjoy reading and thinking critically about what you read, I know a way you can save yourself a sub and actually make money in your pastime. It's called a proof reader."
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Here is the single sentence of clarity to point out the fundamental problem of this argument.
What you are arguing as the merit for questing is simply the idea that people get a bonus for changing activities up every so often, questing itself has nothing to do with it.
You can make an open system that has XP bonus and degradation that would instill the same concept into the game without the need of railroading the players into specific chain of tasks to repeat.
If the goal is to reward players seeking variety, that is very doable without quests. Saying they are the be-all solution and source of the variety on display is very simply, wrong.
The complaint of quests being themselves grindy comes from the frequently used structure in games of quests being one of several core objectives and gameplay elements strung together in a chain. While "quests do not all use the same mechanic" they do use a sequence of the same mechanics that ultimately loop many times over during the course of play.
Grinding may not be questing, but the format of many MMORPGs quests are certainly a grind.
The "more variety" shtick was also proven false a long time back, with the revelation that the only way you establish that claim is through the focus on a very specific component of the gameplay. It's a no-brainer that killing two different creatures is more variety than killing one, quests are not the impetus for that condition.
As the for "a lot of quest hubs and a lot of zones" claim, that's really not as true as you seem to want it to be. In many MMOs you might use as an example, most of them are not simply railroading the quest chain, but you are lead through a very finite and controlled set of zones. The examples to the contrary in MMORPGs is quite rare, and even WoW doesn't make that good of a show for it as if you're skipping between quest hubs you are also typically jumping in quest level (not to mention you basically just migrated from green to brown scenery or vice versa to do the same stuff). Just because you can skip things to do something else does not mean it's a well supported feature or actually offering any variety.
What it properly boils down to is not questing, but rewarded gameplay through bonus experience and loot from any variety of systems or mechanics. It can be as hidden as simply scaling rewards against activities and players automatically in the background to incentivize changing it up, or to transparent "you will get this" as a bonus style.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
EDIT: What I mean by this is that there are a lot of people buying into whatever is the most convenient thing to do and repeating that as a meta-gamed way to achieve what they desire, generally top level+max gear, rather than simply for the sake of playing the game. These are the same people that then turn around and complain there's no variety, because they damned all the variety in the pursuit of "the end".
basically, the average player is stupid and they need to be coaxed into having fun because they will intentionally hurt their own capacity for entertainment otherwise, and very few will strike upon seeking the entertainment they actually desire.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
They rush, ignore and waste a whole game to get to the mythical "End Game"
I sometimes wonder why these MMORPG makers even bother making a world. It seems that DDO had the right concept all along, it just wasn't at the right time.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
With fairly obvious things like players failing to play skillfully and losing, players will complain that it's the game at fault*. So naturally they're even more likely to do so when it's something subtler like the game letting them grind mobs endlessly for full reward.
That's why it's the game's responsibility to enforce gameplay variety.
(* An example of this is Homing Shot from SW:Battlefront. Players complained about this auto-tracking 1-hit-kill projectile as being overpowered. But it wasn't actually overpowered, it was underpowered. By running laterally to the homing shot you could dodge it 100% of the time. This made it far less effective than the other slot options.
Players were not fixing this falsely-perceived imbalance themselves (by learning to dodge it), so the game nerfed an already-underpowered weapon further, because it's not like you can just expect players to be reasonable, rational people. They will behave irrationally, keep dying to homing shot repeatedly, and then accuse the game of being at fault.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I know it's because the reality is that players are deriving entertainment from many types of fun, and that the consequence is that entertainment is the blending of these forms to give a more cohesive user experience.
Just seems there's an apparent disconnect when one wants to simplify entertainment to a single primary value for entertainment which people seek, and then argue that people are predisposed to avoiding it. Weirdly contradictory logic.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin