There is only ONE reason devs have started with these notions that questing and Trinity need to be changed.They are really bad developers.
We don't need an alternative to questing we need more depth put into it ,more reason than a simple tool to gain levels.
As an example an old game made on console FFXI.Questing did NOT offer any xp,it offered favor which opened up a new system with city guards to attain loot with achieved seals garnered by killing mobs.Questing offered a way to garner a new weapon skill.There is soooo much more can be done with questing,devs are just too cheap to afford the time to make more systems and write new menus.
They just want a SIMPLE menu system that has a trigger that leads to a goal to trigger back to the npc then you click the npc that triggers an xp reward.They could add in puzzles but then how do you make it a good quality quest when your puzzles are in some bland dungeon where it is just stone walls with a couple textures?Anything you add into that bland dungeon will stand out like a sore thumb,aside from perhaps adding in breakable walls.
Basically it takes a lot of work to make a really good quest,but it SHOULD,they are suppose to be a QUEST not an xp hub.
The reason (some) developers and (some) players say questing and trinity need to be changed is because questing and holy trinity are exactly the same concepts/mechanics they were 10+ years ago, closing to 20+.
It is obvious we don't need alternative to questing - RPGs are about Questing.
What we need is an alternative to "!", read or skip flavor text, read goal, do it, until the entire quest hub is cleared of quests.
All this stems from the, imo, moronic importance developers and players attribute to levels and progression.
And as trinity devolved into meaning holy trinity, Questing (an adventure to fulfill a goal) devolved into "!" that have a goal to fulfill but very little on adventure side.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
I was having this conversation with some friends a few weeks ago. We all came to the discussion thinking that the heritage quests in EQ2 were some of the best questing experiences, being lengthy multi-stage quests that took a long time to ultimately finish. TSW does this well too, and in a more varied and interesting way than EQ2.
I still like the old fashioned D&D approach though, where a quest is a proper adventure. In some ways I think DDO got this right and would like to see more of that.
Pretty much like any other mechanic it depends on how it's presented. if over used, written like bad fan fiction, blindly following markers on a map, cheap fast and forgettable. It is nothing more than a grind, and these days a fairly poorly masked one. Since everyone's doing the same bloody thing. Quests aren't inherently evil themselves, the laziness of the developers in delivering them may well be. Currently they are usually only used as a means to an end. Not a journey in and of themselves.
EDIT or to put it a different way if during a 2 hour play session doing nothing else but quests, if you can't even remember how many you did, or the specific story arc in most; they were poorly delivered.
It's like reading a novel or going to a movie that was poorly written enough you forgot the plot before you even drove out the parking lot or finished placing the bookmarker.
There is nothing even remotely close to good old questing. Only thing that I'm disappointed in GW2 is lack of classic questing hubs. Actually everything is kind'a hub, just works differently.
I love good questing not just questing. If you have good questing like EQ 2 heritage and Secret World then I enjoy them. I enjoy well written and well voiced quests and I absolutely love a whole story and lore that you can get from them. I am a huge fan of good quests.
Final fantasy xi had good questing. There quest's would let you into dungeons to search for stuff. There was so much veriaty to the questing in fxi compared to wait they did with ffxiv.
ffxiv is just go here kill 3 then report back, or go to a darkend area and mobs appear kill those, or just run around and talk to one npc and then another npc. Oh and click a shiny thing on ground to click on or an npc with a giant circle over there head that you need to click on.
Even the mobs have q's over there heads if they need to be killed for a quest. So simple and strait forward, but thats modern mmo's for you.
If I think about the majority of single player RPGs I play, they generally follow the following formula:
Quests:
These are used to tell a story and to guide the player around the game.
Combat:
This is used to provide the moment-to-moment fun and is what rewards XP and thus progression.
With this model, quests become detached from progression. If you don;t enjoy questing they you can just completely ignore it and just go out, explore, kill, craft and you'll still progress and level up. However, if you like story or aren't sure where to go, you can do some quests which will guide you to interesting places or introduce you to interesting NPCs and stories which help connect you to the world.
So, my solution to the quest hub problem would be to remove all XP from completing quests and increase the XP gained from killing stuff. This way, those who enjoy the quests and storyline can still follow it and in the normal course of gameplay they'll still get their XP and level up. For the rest of us who are tired of generic quests and boring storylines, we can just head out into the world, explore, kill and have fun our own way.
This would, however, necessitate having larger, more open worlds where you can easily head out and explore properly. A game like SW:TOR wouldn't work with this model due to the very small, linear zones that they have, but bigger worlds with more interesting places to visit would work great.
Finally, if a dev wants to gate content behind a quest, just make sure that there is some way to notify the user that a quest needs to be completed to gain access.
This guy has nailed it, as far as I'm concerned. Getting more experience for killing instead of pretty much being forced to quest. EQ was like this in a way. While it did have quest, they were not the primary way that most of us leveled up. We leveled up by killing mobs. I have no problem with a game having quest, but attach less experience to quest, and more to killing, exploring, and crafting. As cameltosis has said, use quest for storytelling, not as the primary means of leveling up. I hate the quest hub design of today and it is the primary reason that I have become completely jaded, and why I don’t play MMORPGs anymore.
Since I hate questing the only better alternative for me is no questing.
That's a good point. Why do MMO's, supposedly played in a fantasy/sci-fi/whatever world, make questing the primary way to play in said world? If you play in any other way (i.e. just play) you can't keep up with others. Not even close. And you're still dictated on where to go if you want to advance.
Gamers are corralled, basically enslaved, to play as the developers dictate they play.
But you know what's frightening? The fact that gamers don't care, they just fall right in line because "that's how it works". And they actually want it that way, because it's easier. More relaxing. Guaranteed "win" results (because I don't want to argue anymore about what "win" means). And yet, they are mostly bored with it. Go figure. They want the same ol' same ol' to not be boring anymore. They want same ol' same ol' to somehow magically feel all new again. Proof, I say, that gamers really want "fantasy". O.o
Generally I enjoy questing. Or at least i used to. My main problem with questing is that as quest hubs and linear quest lines, rather than stand alone quests or chains, has caused what feels like an exponential increase in the number of quests present in most newer games.
It has become common to see 250 or more quests/tasks/events whatever they are called, in a single zone.
I would much prefer far fewer quests with more involved objectives. I prefer to pick up a couple quests and spend an hour or more on them than to complete 20-30 in the same time. It should be fairly simple to adjust exp gain so that advancement remains at whatever level the developers feel is appropriate.
Never underestimate the power of Stupid people in large groups.
I guess nobody here play EQ1 .. LOL.. EQ1 was the first prior to WoW and EQ2 to have quest.. but to run the quest you had to keep a notepad handy to remember all the stuff the npc ask you to get.. then you would return to said npc with the amount of items and get reward and some xp.. Still the game was a mixture of questing and grinding and you did not have a quest journal or anything along the lines to keep track what npc ask you to do what .. pretty much you had to remember or keep notes about it.. EQ2 came with book journal and quest tracker and all that stuff.. EQ1 or Everquest.. had insane long quest that you had to search for guides online to work and printed them out to keep track of your quest.. Once the npc gave you the dialog he or she would not repeated.. after words in later expansion you could talk to the npc again and would repeat what was ask.. People complaint about the quest or grind of the games .. they are the challenges of playing a game.. if you don't want to complete said tasks.. why do you play that game to begin with..
The only thing WoW brought is insta-gratification to people who could not go thru or play thru the harsh rules of the games at that time.. Most games developers have succumb to that type of play that has ruin game play today.. Even EQ2 which was at introduction with lesser rules then EQ1 but retain some harshness was also water down later to compete with WoW..
One of the biggest issues right now in NA is that we are getting games developed in other countries and brought over here years after their initial release. The outcome of that is some are able to join said games in initial release and control or be top players when it is finally released in NA.. In the battle of subscription vs cash shop games.. cash shop games won the war.. instead of quality games .... we are getting crap..
The issue I have with quests in general is their presentation and how generic and shallow progression usually feels. The PvE aspect of a theme-park MMO is usually one of its weakest points - its boring and extremely repetitive, from start to finish. What's worse, you're usually stuck doing things you don't want to do or feel absolutely dumb.
You're always being pushed by everyone, in every city and in every village, to do their own bidding - "kill X because I'm a guard and apparently I can't do my job", "gather Y for me because I'm a farmer and I'm too busy with my sheep", "escort Z because its important and I can't do it myself"... its like the entire world is full of lazy, incompetent people who can't do their jobs right. Instead of having an intelligent and respectful world, its like we have to baby sit everyone otherwise everything just falls apart.
Quests don't have to go but they need to be revamped to be more interesting and meaningful. If everything I do in the game contributes, in some small way, towards progression then I don't even care if quests give me loot or not... as long as they're good I will do them. Copying WoW because of its success doesn't mean your game is going to be successful too. As far as I'm concerned, the industry only needs one World of Warcraft - if you want a future as an MMO dev, start innovating.
Comments
It is obvious we don't need alternative to questing - RPGs are about Questing.
What we need is an alternative to "!", read or skip flavor text, read goal, do it, until the entire quest hub is cleared of quests.
All this stems from the, imo, moronic importance developers and players attribute to levels and progression.
And as trinity devolved into meaning holy trinity, Questing (an adventure to fulfill a goal) devolved into "!" that have a goal to fulfill but very little on adventure side.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
EDIT or to put it a different way if during a 2 hour play session doing nothing else but quests, if you can't even remember how many you did, or the specific story arc in most; they were poorly delivered.
It's like reading a novel or going to a movie that was poorly written enough you forgot the plot before you even drove out the parking lot or finished placing the bookmarker.ffxiv is just go here kill 3 then report back, or go to a darkend area and mobs appear kill those, or just run around and talk to one npc and then another npc. Oh and click a shiny thing on ground to click on or an npc with a giant circle over there head that you need to click on.
Even the mobs have q's over there heads if they need to be killed for a quest. So simple and strait forward, but thats modern mmo's for you.
Why do MMO's, supposedly played in a fantasy/sci-fi/whatever world, make questing the primary way to play in said world? If you play in any other way (i.e. just play) you can't keep up with others. Not even close. And you're still dictated on where to go if you want to advance.
Gamers are corralled, basically enslaved, to play as the developers dictate they play.
But you know what's frightening? The fact that gamers don't care, they just fall right in line because "that's how it works". And they actually want it that way, because it's easier. More relaxing. Guaranteed "win" results (because I don't want to argue anymore about what "win" means).
And yet, they are mostly bored with it. Go figure.
They want the same ol' same ol' to not be boring anymore. They want same ol' same ol' to somehow magically feel all new again.
Proof, I say, that gamers really want "fantasy". O.o
Once upon a time....
Never underestimate the power of Stupid people in large groups.