Dev Discussion #21 - Quest Breadcrumbs

Burningpally

If you dont want quest indicators above quest givers you could do a system like in witcher 3. where you go to a quest board crab a quest then go find and talk to the giver for more info. I think a read with slightly more bold letters on important parts quest would be cool.

Dreoh

Classic WoW is the experience I've enjoyed the most in an MMO when it comes to quest breadcrumbs.

Personally I really enjoy hands-off approaches the way games like Morrowind and other older RPG titles like the Baldurs gate games handle it, but I know that that gets very tedious after the 50th hour of having to critically read through dialogue on your 200th quest that you don't really care too much about.

A good middle-ground between the "Read everything critically and surmise the goal and location for yourself" and "here's a marker and a line on the ground for you to follow" is the Classic/Vanilla WoW way where the locations and objective information are clearly stated somewhere in the quest dialogue, but can be easily spotted at the beginning or ends of paragraphs when you quickly skim the text.

I absolutely abhor the overabundance of hand-holding in modern games, and the tediousness of no guiding hand will eventually grate on the player, so it's vital to achieve the perfect moderation between the two.

Games like Skyrim, Monster Hunter World, etc. where you can just zone out and follow a line on the ground or an arrow in the sky is anti-immersion and causes you as a player to never really get to understand the world.
I still don't really understand map layouts in Monster Hunter World because to get to where you have to go you literally just follow the scoutflies that lead you to your destination. You never have to learn the terrain for yourself.

Another thing is it can't be an "optional" or "opt-in" experience, because player's really don't know what they want and will always take the easy way out and complain later. That has been seen time and time again.

Copperfield

recommend quest's with some sort of direction...

Some people dont care about the lore and stories, many might tho, but the option need to be there.

Map indicators and maybe marks above heads with quest's givers

The vanilla questing experience for wow is a pain reading everything.. and many use questie as an addon.

ObviouslyGrimm

I think the best way to handle this would be to have some kind of indicator over quest givers heads to find quest, if we are searching for something during a quest we could have a highlighted area on the map to indicate where we need to search/ hunt ect. couple that with a description of what we are looking for in our quest log heck even some kind of image is fine so long as it doesn't make things too easy. I realize that this has been done in a bunch of games before and I think that because it works well. it doesn't make things too easy, it also doesn't make the player feel like he is being corralled like lambs to slaughter. if I see a icon for a quest on my map or above a NPC's head I can always come back to that later as it will always be there.

Noctis

I have been playing MMO games for many years and what usually attracts my attention are the story, missions and the role that as a player you can have in the world (affecting what happens).

But if something seems to me that can cause a problem, it is the issue of languages, some communities like Spain need a clear answer in an official post about whether we will have the game translated at some point or not, because the vast majority of Spaniards are not good in other languages ​​or they cannot enjoy a game in which they need to be translating the meaning of everything (Before the game is translated, only a minority of Spaniards who normally do not reach 5% of the community consider playing it, especially in the case of a game with monthly payment and it is because if we cannot understand the history, missions or even descriptions of objects and abilities, it logically becomes difficult to enjoy the game). Ashes Of Creation is undoubtedly going to be a great game seeing the way it is going, but without translation it will hardly be enjoyed by the majority of Spanish speakers (And the amount of Spanish community that plays it at that time cannot be considered for decide whether to translate it or not because it is like a cat biting its tail. Not translated = Little Spanish community = Not translated because not enough community of that language is seen, when the reason that there is no Spanish community is the fact that there is no It is translated and therefore the Spanish feel that they will not be able to enjoy the story, missions or they will have a hard time understanding the descriptions of skills and objects)

Tatiana

I think breadcrumbs are necessary in a modern MMO. In theory the concept of having to read a quest thoroughly, and explore is nice, but in practice I have found it almost always leads to a frustrating experience in the end and can be very quick to kill my enjoyment of a quest, and deflate my enthusiasm for the game as a whole.

Also, the majority of players are never, ever going to be convinced to read the quest text in 2020. I know I certainly am terrible with this, as is pretty much anyone I've ever played games with. The best way for me to absorb lore and story is through voice overs, where I can listen to it, as well as the environment as I run around the world. Otherwise I will read any summary if I absolutely have to but would rather spend most of my time outside of a menu.

Zeric

I think that there should be options in the menu to choose the level of breadcrumb displays.
Also, the default should be all displays off.
Would probably want some sort of tutorial explanation or some other means to highlight the quest breadcrumb options.

Kattivaara

Hi

Could questing be made so that all the questgivers have somekind of ingame flag infront of the house or marketstand or anywhere indicating that adventurers (the player) are needed for a job.
When you have completed the quest you can see ingame that the flag is taken down.(For that player everyone else who hasnt done the quest sees it up in the wind)
I mean with this that there could be a way for all to recognise that who has a quest and who doesn't. A tall flag which depicts an single adventurer or a group of adventurers, depending if the quest is for single or a group.

I hate the floating yellow questionmarks or other floating things over questgivers.
And no arrows on the forest floor telling where to go.
It takes the rest of the immersion away which game makers try to produce to players.

The quests should be read from journal or from conversation and you should have an option to ask around about the quests and the closer you get to the quest place the more the npc should know. I understand that this takes man hours but somekind of realisation for the need to understand quests and to gather information.

And quests that take you to different places and quests that have small tasks inside them. ESO has quite good quests or atleast some of them.

Sort of medium between wow and hc questing.

Thank you for these questions🙂

caedwyn

I like all npcs to be interactive and engaging and adding more to living world immersion, quest npcs can either have a Mark on their head or they can start interaction with YOU, for example they can wave at you , run towards you, have cut scenes and things that happen.


About the information i like all normal quests to give clear information and the more advanced quests to require some adventure.

I want quests to have options and consequences , i want to gain story and community related reputation and infamy based on the choices i make.

It would be nice to have quests react with your exploration, for instance if a quest wants you to find a certain npc but you have already found it before in your adventures then it can be marked on map

I also like to have a minimal directional quest compass on my crossair

digitalwind

Split the difference. Markers for most Quests, but not for all. If I want to find a dungeon I gotta read and collect clues from npc and use the tavern system.

If I need to go pick herbs for someone's soup give........just give me the damn marker

Also.
Inconvenient questing can make a player quit after only a single day. Until you have played for many hours, inconvience is a cancer that will compound and grow until you quit. Doesn't matter how fun you make grinding wild fungus, if you had to spend 10 minutes just to find the things, you won't feel like doing that again. .....and if you get lost....oh boy

SilkTouch

So as some of members mentioned Lineage II. Questing in this game was slightly painful but it was rewarding. It felt like that you figure out someting by yourself. I remember that many players ask for help in the chat "where the location is", "which mob to hunt" and that kind of interactions was fun.

I personally don't mind that quest-givers have "?" etc. above their heads but I find unapealing highlighted paths, big pointy arrow above players head to show exactly where to go.

So the idea of journal with essential informations/hints about location, mobs etc. would be challenging
and therefore rewarding and it would force players actually read the quest information.

Happymeal2415

Give information that makes sense for the quest. If you're killing rats in some guys barn. That guy is sure to know where his own barn is located so you should have obvious markers. If you're trying to track down some forever elusive thief you shouldn't get any breadcrumbs.

Valentine

Have us get details from questgiver dialog like Morrowind with certain classes, idealogies, religions or reputations able to get bonus details, objectives and rewards or even take the quest in an entirely new direction.

Luthienstorm

Ideally, main questline, skill trainers, trade trainers, and main merchants should be easily identifiable. I don't want the quests to be color coded by difficulty like wow. This derails from gamers choice. I want to see bread crumbs spread throughout the area of "quests". It makes talking to everyone actually useful. When making my own RPG I organized NPC txt into 4 chategories based on level. Main quest, guild quest, side quest, trainers, and background npcs. Each type would give additional story on the area, quests, foes they'd safe, or items that may be helpful. I especially suggest this for levels 1 - 20 as truly feels like an RPG. When what information is provided I expect a description of the item, number needed, and general area. Unfortunately, this is where quality control comes in. If you give me the area and item and I find one and they are all called a chart. I expect all the charts to look generally the same unless otherwise stated. Some quests could be as open as my husband never returned from the war, his name is ...if you see him please tell him his family is still waiting. Quests description ranges from novice beginner intermediate advanced and master. Kill 10 wolves South east of stormwind in the Elwynn forest south of the blacksmith in goldshire just beyond the brandy bridge. (Specific) Open quests should have big rewards, RP, special 1 off items, gear, title, reputation, or the equivalent of a few normal quests in value. I think MMO's these days are more like theme parks as they give you a linear path you're suppose to follow. A true sandbox doesn't tell you "THIS WAY" is easier. Discoverying that out for yourself is part of the fun. In extension I don't think you should be able to see the lvl of other characters or npcs. Green/yellow/red (wow) is enough. Risk vs Reward, skill vs gear, what you do vs how ppl percieve you. From a marketing perspective if you want to make things big shiny and easy at the beginning fine, but by level 20 I hope the game takes on a more realistic or D&D persona on questing.

WMC51

I understand you can't make it old school with no markings but please

No big exclamations over NPC heads

No map markers. Directions like mountains to the east or kill wolfs around the farm should be good enough.

No magic gold path to follow to a spot.

How abould some secret old school hidden quest where you have to wave or dance for the right NPC.

H8edHero

Replied to the twitter post but want to copy it here as well:

As many have mentioned a toggle for both would be ideal. Some days you just want to get things done. Other days you want to truly free roam. Possibly special quests that can only be done organically that have better rewards at the end.

8BitBaker

I personally really enjoy breadcrumbs but prefer a non-intrusive guide between quests. One of my favorite ways for quest guides to manifest is as a compass either at the top of your screen or around the circumference of your minimap.

OEF82nd

the skill of cartographer is supposed to exist so have the NPC give you coordinates that you have to take to a cartographer who gives you a map to the start of that particular quest or another NPC near the start that can get you started. Nothing says you can't have a NPC with just maps to quests. there could even be an elder NPC in the crossroads and encampments that can give you directions based on terrain features to get you started on local quests and save the bigger quest lines for larger nodes and their benefits.

Roko

I would like to see this breadcrumb features restricted to utility skills.

pickadoliver

For me, immersion is key. Meaning that I wanna feel invested and immersed in whatever I do in the game. If quest objectives are highlighted on the map and mobs "glow" etc I tend to zone out. That leads to a game almost being more autopilot than me actively playing it.

When it comes to quest givers being visable by some sort of indicator, I'm all for it.

Bebss

For quest givers personally I'd like to see main/important quests to have a marker over their head to let you know that they have a big quest available to do. The smaller/side quests I'd like for nothing to be shown and only be available after speaking with the npc to have the option to help.

When actually doing the quest I'd like for no help on the world map as long as the quest has the information in it on where to go. Kill quests I wouldn't be against something indicating on mobs targeted frame to show that they are indeed the mob that you need kill but I wouldn't like to see something just floating above them. Gather quests I personally wouldn't want anything above said item indicating that they are the item you are looking for, that being said the quest needs to give them a good description of what they look like(I suppose something to help pop or stand out when mousing over them would be helpful).

Thanks for reading, GL can't wait to play the game.

Grimfaldra

I have experienced nearly every level of quest immersion there was in my time. From "read the text or never find the quest targets" to "there is not even a text, you better figure out yourself why the hell monster X is not getting hurt by you. Oh you did not understand an obscure reference of the npc two chapters back. Bad luck.", a mix of both and all levels in between the hardcore methods and WoW nowadays where you actually could might as well have a red button "finish quest" right when you get it, since there is nearly no way you can die on regular questlines.

Having said that and being a bit of a hardcore quester, I do not want the "void" of having to piece together everything, neither do I want the handholding of many modern MMOs. A mix would be nice.

Basically ESO did it half-right. Most quests are just handheld "chase the map marker" quests, then again, there are quests when the marker only tells you roughly where to go and then you get a highlighted part of the map and have to search yourself. While that is not perfect, since those highlighted arears are sometimes pretty small, but it would be a way to add immersion while questing.

A bonus would be if the actual quest targets in that area would pop up at random spots, so that everyone has to check that area and cannot just look the stuff up.

So basically, Wow-level too much (even ESO as it is now), but highlighted areas that can maybe be linked to a passive skill (area getting smaller the higher the skill is) or even marking questgivers is ok. Having to work a little bit for quests and not being able to just look everything up -- let alone the game telling you -- would surely be fine, even for the instant gratification crowd.

LuckyGeek

Rather than breadcrumbs, I was a huge fan of LOTRO quest system. For many quests, a large area on the map was highlighted that didn't point out the objective clearly, and so required some exploration. This was combined with the traditional quest marker for moments when you had to speak with a specific NPC.

Cashomi

Questing has always been my least favorite part of an mmo. Which honestly is why I liked archeage, because questing was mostly over at max level and I could do as I please. I also liked questing more in bdo because I could press T and auto run to the next part of the quest lmao

I know there's a lot of people like me who prefer to grind mobs for experience rather than quest (I did level 16-60 on classic through only mobs). So I think having all the markers on the Npcs and map make it super nice for when I need to actually buckle down and do some quest lines

viperjsc

I think that the best way to satisfy all people is to just make it UI changeable. Do not like marks above heads, click it off, do not want it on map or mini map click it off, make it so that anyone can make it any which way will lead to a better system for all.

novercalis

Still gonna continue to voice my opinion that a toggle feature is pointless. Psychology wise - most people will want to take short cuts to get to their rewards as fast as possible. If the option for instant gratification is there, we will take it. As much as I want to read a quest text and use my noggin to find reference clues - if you give me the easy option - ima use it and end up ignoring the 100s of hours the dev put into the story/lore.

Because at the end of the day - players also wants to race to the top and this shaves soo much hours in the long run. this is a MMO, RPG --- enforces all aspects of RPG and if players are stuck, thats where the MMO kicks in - get out of your single solo shell and communicate with the server / node / citizens you are a part of. Work together.
It worries seeing people are for breadcrumbs or allowing toggle breadcrumbs out of consideration for others w/o realizing the long term negative effects to it.
It's a new game, players will get used to the system. Everything may some hard but they have a month to learn the system and it's not really that freaking hard to understand a new system in any video games. So the fear of losing players isnt there. had this been a free game, that would change things - but the moment a player invested a subscription for a month - they aren't gonna try it one day and rage quit.

Triple

I think some variant of notification is probably a must but I don't like the look of giant marks above the head, I think they are visually obnoxious. I prefer to put in a little more effort for questing. A toggle feature would be ok for those that want it vs those that don't imo. I prefer if the npc either heralds the quest or has some sort of behavior that indicates that they need help.

SoggyBandaid

VioletLight wrote: »

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?

Hello, I just joined up to the forum conversations, and have been following AoC casually for a while. Thank you to all the devs for their hard work so far, and all their hard work to come. I wanted to comment that it seems like the general discussion agrees too many breadcrumbs break immersion and ruin exploration, and too few breadcrumbs lead to frustration and quest burnout. IMO (like many others) a happy medium would be best, but I would like to mention the type of quest should probably make a difference. Ex: "Go to this farm and kill these wolves." probably highlighted more than "find the source of this farm's missing livestock". Second, the source of the quest should probably make a difference. Ex: A bounty board quest probably highlighted more than a mysterious item I pick up off a unique monster. Furthermore, I'd like to give a shout out to Roko,

Roko wrote: »

I would like to see this breadcrumb features restricted to utility skills.

Personally, I would feel like my immersion was broken if I have an awesome globe wandering ranger who can locate a quest in his own back yard because I the player am having a bad day. In games like D&D skills fill this role, and I'd love to see this play out in utility skills or even the scribe profession somehow having an edge in cartography when it comes to quests.

Finally, it sounds like quests are going to be very fluid in AoC. New paths will open and close as land is developed and goals are reached by players who may be completely unaffiliated to me. For that reason, as just a quality of life request, I would really want some sort of visual marker to indicate when a quest is being offered. That way I won't need to talk to an entire town every time I sign in just to make sure I'm not missing some great lore. I'd personally prefer some sort of glow similar to gatherable materials.

digitalwind

You could also make markers a swirly under the NPC's feet instead of over their heads. No immersion breaking (!) or (?)

But I maintain that inconvenient questing (questing without markers of where to go) will be a poison pill for new players.

Cost - Benefit Analysis: You will lose many many more players to frustration from the lack of Quest markers than you would gain from the novelty of finding the Quest objectives yourself.

Nitpick

You could take inspiration anywhere. Think the Gothic series. Gothic 1 and 2 had such iconic story telling, as in, a journal that gets filled in by you. So it's like you are keeping memos for yourself to read. "This guy told me that this and that. I should probably go there and do this, see what happens...".

I think, that the side-quests could be marked by ? or ! or whatever. But the main quest line (if there will be any), should be as iconic as possible. So that the NPC's would be remembered, locations also. So that you would have to ACTUALLY do something, to get somewhere. All the information should be written in the quest log, so that you can find everything you need to, but actually have to look for it. No hand holding.

I swear to god, if the game holds my hand, I'll spit on it first! :c

I'd be absolutely thrilled, if the questing would be harder. In every MMO I tried lately (bdo, perfect world... sadly, WoW) the questing is horrible. The quests are all about collecting ENORMOUS amount of shiet and you get nothing for your troubles (time spent, nervers destroyed) and they pose no difficulty at all, because all the monsters are easily beatable. It's JUST about time spent. Not fun. Not fun at all. Only GW2, with their events and such is a fun and a bit different way.
I'd prefer WAY higher difficulty, in a way, that wouldn't incorporate enemies in it. As in "find this item, it should be somewhere around that area, near this landmark". Mounts will be rare-ish, so make the distance traveled fairly high, also, the item could be really THE ONLY ITEM, so that it would be fought over, because then it would respawn (somewhere else, but close by the landmark), and the timer would be fairly long. This way, even side-questing would have a meaning, if the rewards (exp, gold, etc.) would be worth it. And so on.