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Question the Quest

FloweringmindFloweringmind Member, Settler, Kickstarter
The problem with most game quests are the efficiency effect. I noticed this playing ESO. You get to the point where you don't care about quests except for XP. Sometimes when new content comes out you might read the quest. In most cases it tends to be CLICK on quest, CLICK through every option, go do quest, run back and get XP.

Problems with current questing systems:
1. ugly icons
2. most users click through content
3. one shot content
4. feels repetitive and grindy

I would suggest the following:

TIERED QUESTS

Basic Quests - Provide some of the same quests as in other games. They are easy to identify and are familiar to players from other games. These provide low to medium amount of experience.

Challenging Quests - As towns expand and grow, they provide players with a better type of questing. The users who started with basic quests can still find basic quests but the Challenging Quests will provide better experience and better reward. These quests are usually found by TALKING to NPCs. These types of quests are found in games like:

Betrayal at Krondor - try https://www.callofsaregnar.com/
Gothic 1 and 2
The Witcher
Morrowind
Warhammer RPG - the pen and paper game.

A great quest is emotional and gets you involved by:

Forced - You are required to because you did something wrong and you are punished until you do the quest.
Locked out - You are prevented from accessing something until you complete the quest
Morals - The quest is a play off of players morals like saving a child. The player should feel the consequences for not doing the quest.

These quests usually require you piece together information to complete the quest and may chain together other quests.

Epic Quests - these are hardest and are usually found by exploring and finding something like an ancient scroll, something written in a book or something mentioned by an NPC. A basically detective stories. The rewards that seem most appropriate are Epic recipes for gear. The pieces to these quest should be randomized so they can't be easily repeated.

As for icons they could be swapped out with character glow or the NPC hailing the character. ESO often does even with quest icons.

Comments

  • 3am3am Member
    I like everything you've got. Personally im a fan of puzzle quests that make you slow down, observe the quest and environment.
  • EmmzaaEmmzaa Member, Alpha Two
    This is a problem World of Wacraft has had since questhelpers came into being. Instead of reading a quest you just run to the maker, do the thing, and run back. This is a problem in both immersion and especially storytelling.

    Having a quest tracker for low level or low xp quests isn't that bad. But I would love 'challenging quests' not having any trackers and maybe a larger focus on lore as well.

    I think this also is a question about addons. Quest helpers and markers were used by many through addons before Blizzard made it a part of the game.
    If someone is going to try and level fast and become a big name of course they will try and download any addon that makes it faster. Questing can be minmaxed and the more you are able to do it the lesser the experience becomes.
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