Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Ashes of Creation Dev Discussion Wants Your Thoughts on Quest Breadcrumbs
System
Member UncommonPosts: 12,599
Ashes of Creation Dev Discussion Wants Your Thoughts on Quest Breadcrumbs
Intrepid Studios has published Dev Discussion 21 for Ashes of Creation, but this time posing a question for the fans and community.
Comments
How much help is the issue, not interested in auto pathing or lines drawn to targets, but certainly enough to get me close.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I think breadcrumbs are bad design and reduce games to mindless, purile e-z mode.
But as someone who himself could not find a muddy elephant in a snowbank, I use them whenever I can.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
As for ! ? markers, unless they are going for an RP feel and there are known locations (e.g. inn keeper, bulletin board) to check for quests, then quest giver / hand-in markers are a must. Sparkles I can take or leave as long as the objectives, and how to complete them, are clear.
Finally, it depends on the number of quests. If a quest is actually a QUEST (lengthy, involved, multi-step, good reward) and there are at most a few hundred of them, then less 'breadcrumbs' is OK... however; if there are thousands of quests where the average reward is no more than handful of XP and some gold (i.e. quests are a chore), then more 'breadcrumbs' please.
On the other hand, Archeage held your hand with exact locations, however no auto pathing like in BDO.
I prefer the Lineage2 option but unfortunately you had to google a lot of information and plan ahead as very rarely you knew the available quests as they required a minimum level to start so you would go into a city and have 2 quests but only 10 levels later to discover you actually now have 20 more that you didn't know about.
I think for me, the best way would be to have like a journal of already discovered NPC and Locations and not have your locations marked on map, unless already discovered.
So for example, you get a quest that says kill 10 boars and tells you they can be found south west of X. If you get there and discover the boars, then sure add some sort of markers over their head as I might have multiple quests involving them so I know when I'm done with that zone.
Same goes with NPCs. If I discovered this Chad Warrior NPC, then show me in my journal what types of quests he can give me depending on certain requirements so I do not have to learn all the game from a shady website filled with ads.
Also, what I would love to see is profession quests like in Lineage2; so when I get to level x and I can add my second class, before I can do that, make the player do a long questline (Like a 20-30h long quest meant to traverse various zones) where parts of that questline is shared between different subclass. So let's say all 8x ranger subclass share the same first questline, then 4 out of the 8th share the second quest and only combination of class x specific subclass share the last questline (eg. all classes that want to add a mage subclass share the final part). In Lineage 2 you would make a lot of friends this way, as many players had to share the same questline and often formed parties to make the grind and time pass easier.
Breadcrumps or not, I think the more important aspect is the reason and story behind that quest. If you tell me I have to kill 10 boars cause the NPC needs some meat then it's a shitty quest. However, if you tell me something like... we used to have a ranger in this town but he got an arrow to the knee and now we need to keep the population of bears under control, where let's say this quest let's you kill 5000 bears for rewards every 4h but it is shared between all players in that location, then I would surely do it cause then I have the pressure over my shoulders where I know that I will have to come back at a later date if I do not finish it.
On the other hand, I think the worst experience would be something like a mobile quest line where you auto path from one zone to another and so the entire quest becomes nothing more than a chore where you watch the game rather than play it.
The TLDR version: Do everything via a map/compass system with markers on the map. No visual clues outside of the map. Have quests separated by main, class/profession, and sub. Everyone does main quests, you have the option to do class/profession quests, and sub (side) quests would be for Scribe profession only.
Why follow the same old breadcrumbs method that every other MMO uses out there? With as diverse as your game is in adventuring and profession classes and making it all-inclusive, I feel like there will be people out there who will love figuring the quests out and there will also be those out there who hate the idea of quests.
I feel like you should have three types of quests:
A main questline, which tells the story of the game, and this one should tell you in clear directions in the quest dialogue where you need to go while putting a marker on your map as well. There should be NO lines drawn in the ground, or arrows, or autopathing. You should have to open your map, look at your current location and where the marker on the map is, and then go in the direction of the marker. Use a compass + map system, it does not have to be giant visual clues that obnoxiously stand out in the real world and ruin the experience.
Adventure/Profession Quests: These quests would focus on telling a storyline behind your profession or adventure class. So let's say you become a Bard. The Adventure Quest for the Bard might be telling a story of you going all over the map to different kingdoms and playing your music in order to gain a name. At the end of the quest, you gain an extra song that you can play for yourself that say improves your experience gain. A reward that would be beneficial to your character, but would also not totally break your game if you didn't do the quest (leaving it optional). These quests, again, would only use a compass/map marker system.
A Sub-Quest Series: I can't be the only one tired of stupid sub-quests of "go kill so many of these and come back". I'd rather have only 5 quests in an area than 20 when most of them are "go pick this" or "go kill this". Make quests interesting and give us benefits for doing them. Why not take it so far as making the Scribe profession even more important.
The idea of the Scribe is that it records down information that happens in the world and adds it to the Library. Why stop there? Make the Scribe also an explorer, someone who has to go out into the world and discover that information. Integrate that with the quest system. The Scribe would go to a quest-board in a village-level Node and would have access to a list of quests available based on the development of the Node. Much like the creatures/dungeons/et cetera evolve with the Node in the area, the quest board should do the same.
For instance, rather than someone just "happening" upon a new dungeon entrance after the Node upgrades, which would still be possible, there would appear a quest on the quest board for Scribes that a "Mysterious Cave" had appeared NE of the village as stated by a wandering merchant who passed by the area on the way to the village. Step one would be to find the wandering merchant and get more information. Step two would be to take that information and figure out the rough location of the cave on your map (no marker). Then you'd have to go and actually find the cave. Once you do, you mark the location of the cave on your map and return to the village library where you would submit your finding. At that point, the Library would "release" new maps to all the players belonging to the Node, and the cave would be shown on the map for all of them. Without a scribe doing the quest, everyone could still potentially mark the location down on their map, for instance if a guild found the cave and didn't want everyone else to know they could only mark it on their own maps without telling everyone else, but the moment a scribe submits the location to the Library then it would be known to everyone. The Library would also record the name of the Scribe who submitted the information and reward the Scribe.
Maybe a Scribe also picks up a combat/investigative quest. A farmer has been having problems with strange beetles eating his crops and has been unable to get rid of them. He writes down a general description of the beetles and goes to the village Library to see if they have any records of the beetles and how to get rid of them. Suddenly, a new quest appears on the Quest Board and a Scribe notices it. Their job would be to go to the farmers land and investigate the beetles. After investigating them and finding out their numbers, combat power, strengths and weaknesses, they would return to the Library and submit this information. Now, in the Library records there is a monster record for these beetles that everyone who goes to the Library can access, and the farmer now solves his beetle problem by knowing their weaknesses.
Because quests would evolve as the node gets stronger, perhaps a Scribe is one day asked to do a quest that involves crossing the ocean, or entering a dungeon, or slaying a dragon. Obviously, the Scribe won't be able to do this on their own, they will need to find a team/players to help them. If a Scribe takes a quest to enter a dragon cave and investigate the dragon, for instance, then he would form a team of players and they would have to kill the dragon with the Scribe present. The scribe would then be able to go back to the Library and report on this breed of dragon. The Library would then have a record of the dragon including its strengths and weaknesses. Players who wish to fight the dragon could go to the Library and look up this information so they could adequately prepare before the fight. Again, they would see the name of the Scribe who found the information when viewing it. It's a "prestige/popularity" system for Scribes.
Most quest systems, aside from a good main storyline and class/profession quests, have really dull quest systems. It also feels like you're forced to do all of the side-quests sometimes in order to unlock other quests and it's recommended to do them all to level up. This is... Quite frankly boring. I remember the first time I stepped into BDO, for instance. I spent 2 hours just playing with the combat system and running around killing stuff and leveling up, because I just liked beating stuff up in such a fun combat system. When I finally decided "Oh I should probably do my quests", I had piled up so many of them that it literally dampened my excitement of the game because I didn't know how long I was going to spend questing to get caught up. Main story quests should be fun and full of action, profession/adventure quests should be full of tests and learning how to play with that class/profession, and the sub-quests should be totally optional and for the Scribe profession (people who like doing quests and choose to do them). If you feel like there are certain quests that important for the lore of the game then just add them to important/main quest line.
That would satisfy both sides of the coin per say.
Executing well though would probably be more difficult in development.
But I'd prefer quests to have descriptions where to go and ask me to actually explore the world instead of giving us a GPS system pointing to the target location.
No reason not to add it and it'd just make the game feel that bit more lackluster unnecessarily, it's a standard feature after all.