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Quests not really the problem?
whilan
Member UncommonPosts: 3,472
Okay I've seen many people say they hate themepark games because they lead you by the nose from point A to Point B and such. Which i can understand. However they tend to also throw quests in there as part of the problem ala limiting what you can do seeing as you have to do all the quests otherwise your character is gimped or levels slower.
I wonder though if the being lead by the nose problem can be somewhat reduced if instead of removing quests they were just handled differently.
Such as this.
Instead of arriving at a town lets say Town plaza.
At town plaza you have 30 NPCs 4 of which give 2 quests each for a total of 8 quests. Once finished they lead you to town forest, which you do the same just with harder quests.
Instead of that, would this be a better idea?
Have the quests more spread out and of varying level (though you could take them all (no level limits)) across the entire game. You don't have to do any of the quests as it's still possible to get the best gear through other ways but the quests will still be the fastest way to get xp. Also keep in mind you can only have 1 quest active at a time. So you have to choose who to help when and you can't help everyone, as when you get too high they will see what they have as trivial to you
I feel with this set up you can still do quests but you don't feel your being lead by the nose from one town to another, and it encourages exploration as well as thinking of who you want to help. It would still be theme park but wouldn't feel on the rails.
What do you all think of this idea? and if you don't like it, do you have any ideas of your own?
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Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Comments
My personal idea on quest/mission system would be this:
Separation of Quest and Mission/Task.
+ Mission/Task: All the delivery "quest", killing "quest", and things that are in the normal quest system right now.
+ Quest: These should reserve in complex multi-branched chained quest only.
EX:
Have NPC Guild Halls as mission/task hubs, where players can go to different guilds (hunter, adventure, merchant, mercenary etc...) to pick up missions which the players can take based on ranks in the guild (i.e. Rank A hunter can take Rank A, B, C, D, E mission/tasks, but if taking lesser rank, you get less reputation points to gain rank.)
NPC guilds will exist in major city, and some satellite cities/towns where only a few of the guilds exist in those satellite cities/towns while in major city is the whole list of guilds. So you can pick up at major city, head to the location of the mission/task, complete it, and head in at nearest city/town that has the NPC guild hall where you got the mission/task from.
Quest will be for the story lovers, where each quest will be design with somewhat of a deeper story than the present "There are too many xyz out there, kill X for me and I'll give you Y" Or "Find A, B, and C and I'll make you something ....." or similar types of the simple quest where it doesn't do much but taking player time to read it and not have it affect anything. These are moved to the mission/task part, so you can have a much deeper quest design while still having those simple quests as mission/task and it makes more sense in terms of lore and have a better structure that will give meanings to these "quests".
Current MMO: FFXIV:ARR
Past MMO: Way too many (P2P and F2P)
The best quest/mission mechanic is in FFXI.
If most game followed that model, we would finally have real MMORPG to play.
I wouldn't be against upping the rewards a bit though but keeping the no xp part or very little xp.
I liked the system in Fallen Earth (aside from the lack of ease of grouping).
It is similar to what you describe OP, but you weren't necessarily lead to a particular town, you had a general idea of where harder mobs where and towns, but you could go in different orders - or not at all you could easily grind or find missions away from town.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
I like my quests to be full of riddles, and I like it when they give special rewards like a pet that I can train through more quests.
Most of the killing I do I do for my own benefit, to get resources and experience. I dont need an NPC to tell me to kill stuff.. I already want to.
I prefer it when quests are rare and special.
I dont like it when NPCs hand out phat loot like its candy.
Here's what I would do:
Have NPCs who tell players about stuff. But you don't actually "get" quests from them. They just tell where you can go to find various boss mobs and the like in the region.
So you talk to one of those NPCs and he tells you that in the mountains to the east is the lair of the horrible Blargramph, a terrifying ogre chieftan. He also tells you that in the forest to the west lurks the Tainted Treant, and so on.
Ok, but you don't get a quest for any of those things, he just tells you about them. Then you decide if you want to go fight the ogre or the treant or one of the other things. Let's say you head out to find the ogre. You find him. You kill him. Ok, when you kill him you get your reward. Whatever would normally be given out as a quest reward in most games is instead given out as loot / experience at the moment you kill him.
But here's the kicker, if you never talk to the NPC and you just wander out there and find and kill the ogre on your own inititive you will still get the reward. You don't even have to talk to the npc first and you certainly don't have to return to him afterwards to get your reward.
See? Now things are much more open and the player has more freedom to choose where to go and what to do. People who can't function without being told what to do can still talk to the NPCs. They can even return to talk to them after each little adventure if they really feel they must. People who don't want to don't have to.
You might be wandering around in the wilderness and meet another player who tells you about some place / boss and you could just decide to go there right then without checking in with the NPC first (because you don't have to).
To prevent people from staking out one boss and killing it repeatedly there could be a timer which would prevent you getting any rewards from that boss for X amount of time. So you would go to one place and do whatever there is to do there and then you would move on to another place. But later, say a few hours or the next day, if you wanted to go back and kill the ogre again for the same rewards...you could.
FFXI had by far the best quest system
0xp for quest rewards, just armor and other things.
You shouldn't have 20 quests in your books at all times that just have you killing monsters and delivering things. Make people group up and form exp parties instead of mindless questing
Never played FFXI but that is the idea I had. Quests just give Gold and not EXP, Mobs dont drop much Gold, but give EXP and drop items. Quests are mroe freeform, think what WAR promised "I see you've been killing bears, ill give you X gold for the Y number of bears you have killed" rinse and repeat, no need to pick up the quest again to repeat it, loot items with a % chance to drop, or do it in a set time, just head out and kill, then when you want a break, head back to your local bounty collector and cash in.
However I do like the ability of Guild Missions and seperate Story/Lore quests that was suggested earlier. EXP from handing in quests is a bit trite, you go out, kill some animals to return a golden locket, come back and magically you have more insight into how everythign works and can level up. Up the mob EXP rate, dump Quest EXP except for Story quests, and even then ease down on the rewards, or perhaps have the story quest open up areas/vendors with special items/training and ditch the quest grind. At least with repeatable kill 'quests'/bounties, your friend can actually come along and joing you, not having to worry about not being up to that quest, or already having completed it.
Trite banal systems making the genre rot need to go!
Quest in Asheron's Call is far the best i ever played in all games. FFXI, FFIV, EQ, WoW, AoC, WaR, Free games, and all.
AC is far the most funnest quests!
Kain_Dale
Grind mobs if you want experience and do some quests for gear, access stuff like that.
But currently no MMO has done quests right, I loved Aion's "mission quests tough" but not the xp reward for them, quests shouldnt give you xp.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
That's an excellent example of a Content Driven MMORPG. I hope one day these Quest Driven MMORPGs would just die.
I like that approach.
I also like a system where questing and killing mobs are almost the same, xp wise. But every couple of levels there's a big chained quest, where you get something really nice, either gear, or a big xp bonus.
No. No. No. Quests should be based on lore/backstory of game. Tiered quests based on area. If you are in starter/newb area, you get starter/newb quests. Advanced tutorial quests, if you will. Advancing further either level/skill-wise, you lose directly proportionate amount of exp in regards to your level/NPC giver. Even so much as high level PC's are turned away by low level NPC quest providers.
Player controlled/dangerous areas have access to the best quest givers. Not only would these NPC's give out harder quests, but they give out the best rewards. Money/experience, low level loot or mats only.
Are we still talking sandboxes? I wouldn't be opposed to GM/Dev Team generated quests. I have participated in these in EvE, a long time ago. Dev took over as NPC that need convoy protection through dangerous space, about 200 of us escorted him. Great times. Darkfall quests were as about as simple as you got...kill x amount of this, or bring back x amount of that.
Simplistic quests are fine as long as they are in the spirit of the lore, imo. Especially lower tiered/leveled quests. One example of DF good quests...go kill 3 red/enemy HUMAN players. Easily exploitable, but damn if you didn't start snooping around places you wouldn't normally go, unless it was a raid/siege.
Player created quests are hit or miss, IMO. I dislike the idea of what was mentioned about only loot dropped instead of exp. I personally think that NPC's should never, ever drop loot that is better than what players can create. Another fine example of easy, yet dangerous quests is to go to enemy terrirory and gather x amount of static mats. Go to elvish lands and harvest a certain tree, or whatever. Assuming of course that the sandbox puts certain materials in racial/faction regions only.
Quests should never allow solo play to max level/skill cap. Dragon Age and Mass Effect are ------> way.
E: Spellez
Playing: BF4/BF:Hardline, Subnautica 7 days to die
Hiatus: EvE
Waiting on: World of Darkness(sigh)
Interested in: better games in general
In my opinion, quests are just a symptom of a greater problem. Large level increases and the separation of players because of it.
Exciting, large level increases forces the game world to be divided into zones built for the newer, higher level abilities. Because the game has these zones based on levels, the players must be herded through the game world. These quests are just a means to do that, and that's why we feel like we are literally being herded through the game. Led by the nose, and all that.
Games can have levels or skills with character growth without being so heavily important. Instead of a character becoming godlike to that first set of MOBs, they could just become better able to fight them. And on through the game, until the highest level characters are great warriors or mages instead of gods to other gods who are gods to still more.
The effect of all this is that the games become all about the levelling, and there is no place for exciting adventure outside of that levelling. Entire "packs" of content become useless to the player as he grows in predetermined paths.
Once upon a time....
I absolutely agree with you but anyone talking about moving the focus off of character progression is seen as a dangerous lunatic. When you start talking about this you are very, very far out in the wilderness, alone, at night...and no one can hear you.
And if character progression were to be reduced or limited there would have to be something to replace it. Something to motivate players to go out and do stuff. I have ideas about this but I'm not even going to bother typing it out because I know it's a waste of time.
Content will eventually be replaced by Achievements/Trophies.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
Quests aren't the problem, the problem is static quests.
The ever-present, never changing, kill 10 rats quest. No matter how many times people repeat them, those peskt rats are still infesting that poor old man's cellar, who apparently also has deep pockets to be able to hand out 10 copper to every would-be adventure starting out their career.
Rather than creating virtual game worlds that are critical in true immersion for an RPG game, developers are content to simply create static game worlds that don't, or simply can't, change without divine intervention of developers hand-crafting every single task for players to play through.
The answer is dynamic content, and by proxy dynamic quests. Game worlds where NPCs offer quests relevant to the persistent game world. Where the tasks given to players change and evolve along with the state of the game world.
A village is plagued by a band of orcs, so NPCs of the town offer bounties on them and plead for protection against them. Failure to assist the town results in the village being blockaded, raided, even potentially destroyed if left on their own long enough. Players completing quests reduces the presence of the offending greenskins until they're wiped out or forced out of the area...
With the orcs gone, the village seeks assistance in re-building, or help expanding... which helps it grow intto a town... which later attracts more undersirable opportunists looking to pick on the weak for easy coin, which means more quests for players.
The above is possible, as is so much more, but it requires the creation of a dynamic content system to support it. Rift looks to be headed in this direction, and GW2 seems to intend to as well.
The bottom line is, static quests breeds a static world, which basically creates that "on rails" themepark experience.
The OP is partly correct,yes they need to be handled differently,but imo the best way is to remove LEVELS from this genre,tha tis what is ruining it.Remove the levels,then the developer has to actually think about what they are designing,they can't just lead you from npc to npc and have you focus on ONLY leveling.
This is why i am amazed that FFXI is still the ONLY game that actually showed the dev Tanaka had some brains to be unique.His questing system had absolutley NOTHING to do with leveling,it was a sort of mini game to raise your fame amongst the nations.Increased fame opened up more quests and some good rewards and the ability to buy better items from the guards,of which Conquest Points also had to be earned to buy things.
Tanaka did not stop there,he coudl have easily said ok i did enough but noooo....
He then took those same Cp[conquest points ] that were needed to buy things using the FAME acquired by doing quests,and also utilized them to buy ORBS to take part in BCNM battles. BCNM =Burning circle Notorious Monsters] these offered a chance at very good rewards and utilized soemthing other than just game currrency...the CP of course.
This is how you tie together content,any noob can design a npc>npc quest game,that takes no brains at all.Al ltha tdev needs to do is be able to add up the xp offered and make sure the gear rewards fit the level of quests.They use them to stear players on a linear path from npc to npc ,zone to zone.So all players do for example in Wow is chase after exclamation marks,they couldn't care less about any of the other NPC,just so long as they have that exclamation mark....nice job at ruining rpg immersion
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Single player games often revolve around questing and manage to do so in generally more successful degrees. This isn't merely because what you do has permanent affects on the gameplay, because there are times when this is not the case. The quests are just much more interesting, and more involved. I don't think I've ever had a quest in a single player game where I was asked to kill 10 of something, then report back. And yet look at the sheer amount of quests in games like Oblivion, Dragon Age, Fallout, or the side missions in games like FF 8, 9 and 10. I recently picked up Golden Sun: Dark Dawn and there is so many reasons and purposes to actually exploring the world map, and doing so is one of the key ways of making yourself stronger. And no, I don't care if that means the game must involve instances. That's not something I ever minded.
I fail to understand why MMO's can't follow these concepts. The argument that it stretches out content gaps is flawed, because that is not content. I don't need a quest to tell me to kill 50 of something, I can just do that on my own. I want the quest to tell me to help someone in a profound way, rescue a village, take down some huge big bad thing in a cave somewhere, to generally be part of something bigger. The fetch/kill quests are lazy development and the gamers who support that support mediocrity. Kill quests have their purpose, and LOTRO found it; for titles and renknown. Yeah if you go out and kill 100 trolls people should know about it, totally. But that should not be the entire purpose of a game.
Some of the most loved games of all times had their players go on grand adventures. Tell me, would Legend of Zelda have been the iconic series it is now, if the game revolved around NPCs asking you to "Kill 10 of [whatever]"? Of course not. There's no reason why MMO's can't be held to that same standard.
So no, quests are not the problem, lazy developers and the players who support them with their wallets are the problem. Because of them I've given up, and am just going to stick with my consoles until GW2
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
Because world persistency does indeed matter.
Read the rest of the post if you're going to address a part of it, please.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
I did read it and quoted the most important part where you are wrong and your reasoning fails.
If one player saves the village, the next player cannot do the quest as the village is no longer under threat. World persistency.
That's the entire problem, most quests are designed using a single player philosophy. They are designed in a manner in which the current player is treated as if they are the one and only person to have have, and will ever, complete said quest. They are static and unchanging, so every time the quest is completed in the past, present, and ongoing into the future, is fundamentally irrelevant, because use of this design philosophy demands a zero impact effect on the gameworld to maintain the content for the next player... which in my opinion is an incredibly boring way to go about things...
Which leads to the next problem, which is that some developers, mainly Blizzard, are embracing concepts like phasing even more. Phasing is a band-aid solution to a very deeply flawed design philosophy model with regards to an MMO. Giving players the illusion that they've altered the gameworld by sticking them in their own little virtual bubble. The problem is, when everyone is in their own little bubble, you no longer have a persistent gameworld, and breaks in immersion and causes myriad of other issues, such as not being able to see or interact players who aren't in the same phase as you even if you'd like to.
The current quest design philosophy creates world persistency, but it does so on a static level. Furthermore, doing so creates player inpersistency. What player A does has absoltuely no effect on the world -- aside from phasing -- so the same static content can be consumed by the next player, and the next, and so on into infinity where players are having a zero-sum effect on the game world.
That is what makes a game a themepark game, IMO.
Ya, imagine that, game devs DONT want to spend hundreds of hours making quests so just 1 person can complete each one.
What you people ask for will never happen, no dev in his right mind would ever do this.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
You're also stuck in the single-player quest mind-set, where every quest is hand-crafted by a person to complete.
Rather than hand-code every single quest, developers could create a quest generation system, where quests are dynamically generated based on in-game circumstances that evolve over time.
Will it have the same depth and tone as tailor made quests? Maybe not... but it could be argued that completing that "epic" quest where you go kill the big bad arch-villain in the game's lore is also not very epic considering that everyone else and their mother has, or will, likely done the exact same quest to kill the exact same NPC... not to mention the big bad arch-villain just respawns indefinitely until developers remove it from the game.
Dynamic gameworld with dynamic quests. It's definitely possible, but most developers are too afraid to take a chance.
If players want "epic", I mean really Epic game play, they are looking for it in the wrong place if they expect it to come from Quests of a pre-designed nature. Even if those quest are made "custom" in some special system. You just can't get "epic" from a system.
For Epic, we need a world that's made for it, and we need a combination of player and GM interaction.
This is something I posted elsewhere, as an example, but keep in mind I am not suggesting a wide open PvP system to do this in...
But let me take it a step farther and suggest that, instead of game companies take more and more away from us players, they go the other way. They…*gasp*…give us more?
And that Trinsic invasion can be used as a good example of how to go about it. Lets take it farther. What would have happened if upon his destruction, Juo’Nar (a liche who was a human antagonist earlier in UO’s game play) “shattered” into bone pieces, that layed on the ground for players to pick up as rares. Souvenirs. Valuable in that context, as UO had a great “rares” feature.
And what if those bones of Juo’Nar could be joined together by players, a ritual or powerword spoken, and he comes back? If clues could be left in the game as to the possibility and means?
Of course, most game develpers will instantly start thinking of problems with doing that. And most of them will conclude that it “can’t be done.” But I suggest that if the game were built around this sort of thing in the first place, it can be done.
What if special things never decay, never leave the game world through quitting player’s inventories, and ongoing scenarios are built around such things?
What if it’s up to the “good guys” to seal away Juo’Nar’s bones, hide them, guard them, from the “bad guys”?
What if standard trade constructions are made via the same mechanisms. Put things “in” a workbench, “do”, and you get a thing. The same as putting Juo’Nar’s bones in a Blackrock coffin, place runes “in” it to seal it, and “do”, and presto! Juo’Nar is back. And Juo’Nar the NPC is seeking recruits for his evil, “tags”. While Juo’Nar the GM can refer to this list of such Tags and go from there.
What if a game were about the experience, the history, the happenings, the world around the players? Instead of about levels and hooks and ladders and repetition?
Once upon a time....