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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Dev Discussion #21 - Quest Breadcrumbs
VioletLight
Member, Alpha Two
Glorious Ashes community - it's time for another Dev Discussion! Dev Discussion topics are kind of like a "reverse Q&A" - rather than you asking us questions about Ashes of Creation, we want to ask YOU what your thoughts are.
Our design team has compiled a list of burning questions we'd love to get your feedback on regarding gameplay, your past MMO experiences, and more. Join in on the Dev Discussion and share what makes gaming special to you!
Dev Discussion #21 - Quest Breadcrumbs
What is your opinion on quest breadcrumbs (target locations highlighted, quest givers with icons above their heads, etc)? How much is too much? How much is too little?
Keep an eye out for our next Dev Discussion topic regarding immersion!
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Comments
For other breadcrumbs, depends on the quest.
I am a big proponent of actually reading quests (even the "Kill 10 Rats" quests), at least one time. If a quest description gives you enough information that you would never really need a location highlighted, I'm all for leaving them out. Some other types of quests, it is nice to have a highlighted area, though. It certainly makes a quest easier. Could definitely see something like the highlighting be available or not depending on how difficult the quest is supposed to be.
Anything like an Epic Quest (think oldschool EverQuest 1.0 Epic Weapons), minimal breadcrumbs should be given: an initial icon for the starting NPC, and maybe a few highlighted locations throughout the quest. Other than that, it should rely almost entirely on reading the quest text and figuring things out. Eventually the quests will be figured out and guides will be available online, but that still gives people the option to do the quests without having their hand held the entire way.
Would really like to see markers above heads and the general spawn area on the map. Tagets themself dont need to be highlighted but searching the map all day to finish this gosh darn quest is way too annoying for me honestly.
Whatever it is, it has to all be stashed server side so there's nothing players can datamine to determine patterns, trends or anything else that will help them blaze through what should be kinda-nebulous discovery-based quests.
Having just a singular point turns questing into a checklist which sucks out the soul and having nothing can be frustrating b/c everyone reads the quest text differently and no one likes being 20 minutes in the opposite direction of where they should go.
A good middle ground for, say, a quest where you have to speak with a person is to highlight a somewhat large area of the map where this individual could be found. That way you're not being told exactly where they are, and it encourages exploration and speaking to NPCs who would normally be completely ignored.
However, you should not show the quest target precisely. For eg: If its a quest to kill 7 silver wolves, their position shouldn't be shown on the map precisely, you could instead use an arrow that indicates the general direction of their location. This way players will have to actually read the quest and won't be spoon-fed every detail.
https://twitch.tv/usblackmc
Micah Black
I really liked the event system in Gw2, and heart quests that pop up when you go near an area that just complete when your done. So for minor side quests that wouldn't necessarily hinder you if you skipped them, or daily quests / bosses. But this also encourages map exploration to find those quests.
For the main story line. have icon's on NPC's to gently push you to certain areas (if needed). This can also apply to specific Class quests, profession , religion, or society quests. I do like the option for a toggle able glowy trail for these quests types if i click on the quest.
That would be a good balance imo, without feeling like its an endless loop of clicking on npcs and going back into the city, just to find out you now have a quest to kill the things you just killed.
As the above indicates, I'm on the opinion and preference to not clutter the UI with tracking information for the multiple quests I am participating in but rather force me to pick the one I'm actively doing with more detailed info. In order to prevent frustration with running back and forth when I was near other quest objectives but they weren't active I recommend cloud-like generous regions on the map notifying me that there is additional other quest objectives somewhere in the region I could participate in.
It makes me not remember where stuff is. I'd rather look around, navigate with Landmarks and other stuff.
I found (when creating scavenger hunts in GTA V RP) people enjoy looking for things when you give them something to look for in a general area.
I don't mind NPCs having a ? or ! above their heads as a point of interest indicator. I also don't mind having an area highlighted on the map but what I really enjoy is genuine exploration.
The reason why I loved Breath of the Wild so much is that there was almost NOTHING on the Wold Map that pointed me into any direction. You just went into the direction you liked the most and stumbled upon stuff.
When I played the Witcher 3 shortly after I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of icons everywhere on the map. The same happened when I tried BDO which I quit just a few hours in because I couldn't decide where to go due to all these freaking icons everywhere. It just makes me feel uncomfortable and pressured to visit it all.
That being said: A good mix of things is always good.
Maybe there is a Villager that wants you to kill a certain alpha wolf and he knows roughly where the wolf and his pack roams the land and points you in that direction.
Maybe there is a wandering merchant you come across that heard rumors of a Sasquatch living somewhere high up in the mountains that is supposed to sometimes come down to grab sheep of a nearby farm.
Now the difference between those two might be that the Villager knows for certain that the wolf is there and will give you a quest to kill it while the wandering merchant won't give you a quest but if the player is curious enough they can go and seek out a sheep farm near the base of a mountain and then venture up into the mountains to maybe find said Sasquatch. The Sasquatch would then drop an item that starts a quest upon its death which the player can then trade in for a more special reward. Sasquatches are ferocious creatures so you would expect that one or two adventurers won't really be enough to take one down.
Now if said Sasquatch would also have pathing from a cave in the mountains down to the village where it steals the sheep from every now and then (I am talking maybe once a day or even week) then people who just hang out near the area might see it pop up and can try to fight it.
But yea having to actively look around in the world to try and find stuff rewards the player not only with experience for their characters and other rewards but also orientation and "map knowledge" at the end of the day, which might come in handy later down the line. Just opening the map and going from point to point to point without ever having to look around is boring and makes the world feel less organic.
I would nearly suggest that the user gets to choose and perhaps even enabling toggle ability support for any/all of these
* Guide lines or pointers
* Quest giver indicators
* Emboldened text queues
**There could be a baseline default functionality as well so no one accidentally turns off all indications and is running around aimlessly
Just my 2 cents though
How hard would it be to have journal entries with hyperlinks? Click the name of the person or area that is in the link and will either show you a picture of the person or area with a bit of background for it? This way if you are on a quest and get lost you can open your journal and find more information there. That way your screen is not so cluttered up when you are not actively looking for someone or something. Finding quests is part of the fun of the game. Getting spoon fed is getting old.
Hard to gauge what could be considered too much, but IMO, WoW would fit that bill. Specifically WoW with Add-ons. You can quite literally never read a single piece of text in a questline and complete it without issue. That's too much autopilot for my taste.
Now, on the other hand, as some of the Intredpid staff have played Lineage II. They will know that it was quite the opposite. Quests were not very well thought out, but forced the player to read each menu of dialogue to squeeze out hints for locations and types of monsters they had to hunt for quests. Most of the time it was along the lines of "Find <NPC Name> in <Zone>" without really telling you where in the zone.. When I was completing my 2nd class change quest I was hunting the wrong zombies in The Wastelands for my quest items for almost an entire day.. and here I was, thinking they just had a low drop chance...lol
Not that this ruined my experience with L2 by any means, but it definitely made me pay more attention to quest dialog.
A nice middle ground would be my preference. As far as your quest log pointing out on your map as to which area your quest is supposed to take place in, I am not a fan of that. That being said you should be able to look at your quest log and know exactly where to go. I feel like this isn't something the design team wants to hear, because it would add more work for them when designing their quests but I feel like adding a pin to the map where the quest mobs are is a cop-out.
When it comes to quest giver locations I believe they should appear on your minimap, but not the world/zone map. I also see no issue with the customary exclamation mark that has become synonymous in MMOs over NPCs heads.
I think you have to find a balance in the difficulty so that players do not look for a guide on the web that would also break the immersion.
And please let us be able to turn off and on whatever breadcrumb system is decided upon.
If you do want to give more guidance to players, then you have the option of making the nouns in the quest/task text a different color since that's generally the things telling you who, what, and where.
My logic behind this is that it appeases both RP players for full quest log contents of story and stuff, and players like myself - give me the meat of the quest and lets roll. Don't highlight the area on the map, dont give a literal glowing trail that leads you to the mobs, and no auto-completion.
WOW really dumbed down their quest system with dailies and just made it so quests were just filler to level.
Radars telling you exactly where your quests are, is just dumb. All your doing, is chasing dots, not searching or understanding the quest.
Multi response quests quests don't get the player involved, Just click to accept. When you have to read or research, at least your absorbing the enviornment.
Dailies and simple redundant quests don't need to be absorbed, but at least the story about how Arthur threw a sword in a lake needs to be told, so players will wonder and chase for it. But if it's always on that giant, well just farm that giant until everyone has Excalibur.
Dumbing quests Is understandable. To many casual players who don't have the time and some people just don't get it. Etc. But there must be a way to get people "involved" in the story, without just clicking the accept button.
To sum up my opinion... I don't know WoWs story, because I just clicked through. But, can can tell you many stories from EQ, because I had to research.
EQ Denny's FTW. Look it up for laughs.
Quests with a more straight forward and obvious path to follow are useful because
- intro to questing for those who aren't
- can be a nice way to introduce new topics, game mechanics, important locations
Quests with less obvious bread crumbs, that require you to deduce more on your own could have better rewards for having to figure out more on your own