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Problem with in game quests
robert4818
Member UncommonPosts: 661
The biggest problem of in game quests is the design. They are made to be "completed". I know this sounds silly, but, very few quests have the option of failure, and those that do generally have no consequence or effect.
We call things quest lines because that is, in effect, what they are. Things go from:
A>B>C>D>E>F etc. When one portion of the quest is completed you move to the next one.
Why not implement Quest Trees? In this case the pass/fail of quest A leads to a different (or different version of) quest B.
If this is to have any true effect though, then the quests need to be written with the assumption that players can/will pass them. A player failing quest A doesn't need to be completed (passed), but if failed, the player can't simply go re aquire it. They now have to move onto B and on past it.
This sort of thing would lead to a more diverse player experience as players aren't garunteed to have the same experience on the quest chain.
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
Comments
Totally agree! that would be freaking awesome.
Failing a quest gives you an entirely different follow up and so on.
Could you imagine the replay value with Alts?
Im normally not a quest lover but that would be great.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
First, we have to get past the fear of failure..... People HATE to fail quests.
Then, we have to actually adjust the difficulty level of quests. I think I successfully complete at least 90% of quests given to me (if not more) in MMOs.
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
See, I think this would eliminitate a players fear of failing quests in itself. Just the knowing that it would branch off into further story and alternate quests would get rid of the fear...I think...
Regardless, this is the best idea I have read on this forum...Why don't devs think of the shit players do?
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PLAYED:FFXI, LotRO, AoC, WAR, DDO, Megaten, Wurm, Rohan, Mabinogi, RoM
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IMO, I think the reason this hasn't been implemented is time and effort.
Oftentimes content is one of the last things created for an MMO, so it gets rushed in a way. The next thing though is that when you create a branching quest line, there is a chance that you are creating content that will never be seen.
It may be that doing it is considered a waste...
That being said, there is absolutely no TECHNICAL reason this can't be done. Absolutely none. This requires no new coding or technology, just a different point of view.
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
The way quests are done these days need to be changed all together if you ask me. Or removed entirely. All they do is reward solo play and penalize players who want to play with other people.
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People hate to fail quests, people hate death penalties, people hate risks in PvP, people hate any possibility of losing at all....
Personally, I'm sick and tired of games catering to the lowest common denominator.
This isn't about failure. You do not have to fail the quest to allow branching the story line.
ie. you pick up the quest, you go to NPC you are supposed to but depending on time of the day, the reply and the story line will be different. You can build upon and take into account previously accomplished quests and their order.
Similar system has a few games, last one I recall was Dragon Age. Probably not as deep but...
It is a lot of effort for very little gain though, imo.
i think GW2 is promissing something like this, doesnt it?
I think the problem with that idea is compounding the number of quests in a chain. If you had a chain quest of 4 quests and each had 2 options then you go from
A
B
C
D
to
A
B1 B2
C1 C2 C3 C4
D1 D2 D3 D4 D5 D6 D7 D8
Having to make 4 quests to 15. Another thing is failing a quest links to another quest, which basically encourages people to fail quests to see certain content, instead of failing you could have more than one way of completing the quest. And don't make these quests long chain quests, doing a simple 2 step quest is much more reasonable.
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I vaugely remember a quest like this in Aion. Asmodian side, in Beluslan, there was a quest chain that, depending on the time of day, would lead to a different outcome. Some guy was a were ribbit or something, I never got that part of the quest, my part was a simple fed-ed style run.
Slating quests for different times of the day, different previously completed quests and chains (due to failing on certain steps and such) would make it a more interesting game, however, as it stands, when you party up and have already completed, or not done the pre requisite quest, you end up running around just leeching exp while someone completes a quest, then you go handin and get the same quest they just completed. Something needs to be changed in order to accomidate grouping and being able to share quests at differing stages (You are at stage C, take the monkeys head to Mike, someone is at stage E, purify the Chalice of wonderment at the altar of Deity X, and others are at stages G, kill the evil Minotaur Lord and bring his horns as proof) Now, with good group co-ordination, you may be able to complete the run in one, if not two goes, speedily catching up the others on the quest chain, but, what if, on returning with the Minotaurs horns, you return the Monkey head to Mike, and he sends you to carl to talk about the altar, when you talk to carl, you are fastracked due to participating in the purification of the chalice, and sent to see Eddy, who wants the Minotaurs horns, but as you participated in the hunt, you are granted the final quest reward. Too much coding, and too easy to break is my interpretation of the ensuing issues with something like that.
*Sigh* if only you had a DM give quests in a sandbox world with permission to grant items as rewards for the insane quests he can come up with, and challenges he can put in your way, instead we are tied to the trite and boring "collect 20 widgets and macguffins and kill 15 beasts of convenience placed in your path" crap that is just so unimaginative and depressing, or worse, "Ohai hero, you look like a strong tough individual, do you mind playing mr Delivery man and taking this package to Mr I. LiveatanewHub, cheers, heres some copper for your troubles"
Branching quests sounds like a brilliant idea, however if tehy get into branching Dialogue trees, I think maybe there will be more RPG in MMORPG's than singleplayer ones. Slippery slope to begin adding content that has been removed for the sake of the casual mainstreamlined bloom fiesta of CRPG.
I think it is a matter of time and money. Of course you can add more content for failing a mission. Are we assuming your toon can't access any more content unless they complete a mission? Designers will argue that they make content that does not need to completed already. You just move to another quest hub or NPC. EQ2 is a great example. It has so many tasks for someone to do that you cannot complete them all without outleveling the content. Can't beat that final boss in the quest chain? Travel to another area and soon that boss is not worth the effort or reward.
How do you want your game? Enough content to do anything, anywhere OR a linear line that branches out like a tree. Complete task a then move one direction, fail and move another direction.
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As I said before, it is lots of effort for very little gain.
I see much more important problem with Questing and strong focus on story - they have an end.
It costs hell a lot of resources to produce such type content as quests(if you want something better than generic) and it is difficult to expand, maintain and has design flaws such as creating large gaps between players.
More dynamic PVE content without linear progression is a way to go, imo.
we did once debated about this with other players. my thought was that besides usual quest states "Not Taken", "Taken" (in quest log), "Finished", "Finished and turned in" there would be 2 more states - "Taken without prerequires", "Finished without prerequires". That would allow you to get quests others in your group in, finish them, but to turn them in, you would have to finish prerequisite quests first.
I think this hits the nail on the head. Designers don't want to spend weeks on a quest chain that people aren't going to read. I do think their needs to be a more dynamic system in place...an evolution from the current quest mechanics. I don't know if it's a dynamic system or a quest tree system (both seem pretty cool).
The company that figures out how to do it, for an amount of money that makes sense will likely make a bunch of money. They might make a bunch of money selling the system to Blizzard, but a bunch of money is a bunch of money.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Your missing the point. Its not about catering to the LCD, its about making failure count. Right now, if you fail a quest, no biggie, go pick it back up again.
With a quest tree, you can't just go pick it up, you have to go onto a quest that reflects your failure.
Take for example a "war" scenario. The first quest is a push into a city (with a success of the over all tree being the re-capture of the city)
If you fail the initial push, the next quest is now a fall back on a bridge where you try to hold off a counter attack. If you fail here, the quest line is dead, and the city is an epic fail.
If you succeed, you might go on to sweeping the city streets (which would have been the same as the success of the first), or maybe you go back attempt an altered version of the push into the city. The quest lines continue to move in this sort of fashion until you finish out the quest line, or fail out of it.
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
Because few cares about the story. All they want is the xp, gold or items rewards from the quest. If you have branching quest trees, there is more work to steer towards the optimal reward for the player.
Something pretty similar, yeah. Failing an event will lead the chain into a different direction.
Yeah, this is the main reason imo.
Players like quests. Quests represent "stuff to do".
Players always want more quests. There is no end to their desire for content.
Devs have budgets. Budgets mean x Quests can be made.
Basically exclusive content (which failure quests are) means that effectively you're taking your x budgeted quests and slashing that number by half (or in the "4 quests to 15" example above, dividing x/3.75) This dramatically reduces the amount of perceivable content in your game.
I'm not saying it should never be done (exclusive content is already done in many games in the form of class quests,) or that it's not cool when it happens. I'm just pointing out the huge, gaping reason it's not a common practice.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Your example is one of the reasons this kind of quest chain/tree is not done much. Either the quest has the same outcome weather or not you fail, by leading through a set of failed and completed quest that have the same ending as a set of fully completed quests, or there is a seprate outcome with two different story line endings. The two story endings work fine in a single player or highly instanced game, but in an open world MMORPG you would have a split in reality.
That is a catch 22 because the reason no one cares of the story is because it usually suck badly.
You don't have to care about the story at all, you don't have to think just follow the directions of the quest.
A good example is a buddy who never reads the lore and play EQ2. He plays a good halfling and collected poison and did a lot of evil things, he did't realize that he worked on the evil betrayer questline until he was told to poison the Kelanthin counsel.
As long as the lore is written by some amateur and the quests are hidden grid alá killing 10 rats and fedexing people wont care about the lore. Only game I myself actually reads the quests and listen to the story in is GW.
It is not really about getting stuff but having fun. If the lore sucks and the quests in themselves are boring the only way to enjoy it is for the rewards. That doesn't mean people wont enjoy a good story and interesting quests.
Level 22 ranger looking to fail quest "x" or " complete complete quest "y" send tell plz.
I don't see this system work in practice at all. Specially not in a MMO enviroment. You will sacrifice Immersion. If you eliminate the fail part and instead add multiple ways of completing a quest further adding to additional or different quest lines then I could see it work
Depends on the scenario. If we are talking procedurally generated quests, then you won't have that.
If you don't offer rewards based on the individual quests, but on quest-line completion, you won't have that.
The problem is that you are assuming that the fail quests will be identical to what we have now as standard. Nothing says a branch can't occur due to a decision in a quest line either. But Failing a quest shouldn't just be a reset.
So long, and thanks for all the fish!