Suggestion: Quest System & New Profession

Archeron

Hello!

I wanted to make a post today about a suggestion I had in regards to a quest system and, potentially, an additional profession. Dev Discussion #21 brought up quests and breadcrumbs, which got me to thinking about how could a unique questing system be added to Ashes of Creation that was fun, engaging, and built around a very important feature of AoC: Nodes.

In my experience, you have people who love the quests and the dialogue and taking their time, and then you have the "Next, next, next..." and fly to the destination because they're trying to get through the quests as fast as possible. My main thought is: Why not let players choose whether they want to do quests or not? Main quests and profession/class quests aside, why have all players do quests? There will be plenty of things to do for a regular player without having a bunch of side quests for them to think about as well.

Right now, Ashes of Creation is going to largely revolve around nodes. Nodes start out small and continuously grow. New areas get opened up, new resources appear, new challenges occur as the node advances. Why not tie in the quest system to the node system?

Here's what I'm thinking:

If we don't use the already existing profession of Scribe, then let's say a new profession is created: Seeker. The Seeker would be a profession designed around a quest system. Rather than all players getting a huge list of side quests and deciding whether or not to do them, the profession of Seeker would solely focus on quests. Completing these quests would gain renown and prestige for the Seeker, but it would also help all of the other players out there.

The Library is the HUB of information for each node. I propose putting a Quest Board in the Library and then creating a method in which when players out in the world discover something, it makes a unique trigger that generates a new quest on the Quest Board. Also, when the Node advances or there is a change to the node or vassal nodes, a new quest is generated.

Let's say for example someone is out in the wilderness gathering lumber. They see a large tree they had never seen before. They aren't able to cut it down or do anything to it, but by going up to the tree the cause a unique trigger. A mysterious tree had been spotted. Suddenly, a quest is generated on the Quest Board in the Library. A Seeker goes up to the QB and sees a quest to investigate a mysterious tree spotted in the wilderness. Once finding the tree, the Seeker takes a sample of it and takes it back to the Library. It is discovered that this particular tree is amazing for shipbuilding. Now, a record of this tree is in the Library and the informational record states whom the Seeker was. The seeker gains rewards for the quest. And now, if you have a lumberjack who is looking to make a market out of selling good lumber for shipbuilding goes to the Library, they'll see information on this tree and they will be now be able to go cut it down.

The Seeker profession would grow and advance based on the number of quests completed and their difficulty. A Novice Seeker may only see quests that are very easy, such as investigating a new tree. As they advance in their profession, they may see quests to investigate monster camps or suspicious areas where adventurers have disappeared. At the top of their profession, they may see quests to investigate dungeons and perhaps even a dragon's lair.

Each time a quest is completed, information from the quest is added to the Library. As information is added to a nodes Library, all players who are a citizen of that node benefit from that information. For instance, if a new dungeon was discovered and a seeker completed the quest related to that discovery, then any citizen of that node would suddenly see a marker on their map for that dungeon. When the new tree was discovered and investigated, all lumberjacks part of that node were now able to look up that tree on their map and see a marker. If a mineral deposit of ores was discovered and then investigated, then all miners part of that node would again, be able to open up their map and see a marker for it.

Of course, players who weren't directly a citizen of that node who wanted to go and mine those ores, or cut down that tree, or jump into that dungeon could do so, but they would not see a marker on their map like the citizens of the node could. All players could cut down the trees, mine the ore, or go in the dungeon, but only citizens of the node in which the Library had the information would be able to see a marker on their map. It gives an advantage to the citizens of the node to find things within their nodes ZOI, so long as the Seekers are actively doing quests to refresh that information.

For instance, let's say a Seeker did find a mineral deposit. Once that mineral deposit had been mined in its entirety, the marker would disappear from the map. If a new mineral deposit appeared somewhere within the nodes ZOI, then a new quest would appear once someone discovered the deposit. A new seeker would have a chance to investigate it and have it appear on everyone's map. The miners would then go out and mine it, and rinse and repeat.

It would be a constantly fluctuating quest system that would tie into the node advancement and world manager. As new things happen in the Node, resources, monsters, dungeons, and events appear and disappear, quests would be created for Seekers to go out and investigate. So long as a Seeker provides the information to the Library, all citizens of the node would gain an advantage in finding these changes. That advantage only stays so long as there are active Seekers who are citizens of the node. And since there are different types of nodes, you can have different types of quests for Seekers based on the type of node.

Questing would not only become optional, but it would have a direct impact on many players gameplay. It would have a much greater feeling of accomplishment to do a quest when I know that by doing so, I've just helped all of the miners of the node I am part of see a new mineral deposit or the adventurers are able to easily locate a dungeon. And, if the Library provided rewards for each quest completed, then I'd also make some gold for my work as well!

Kaielogy

Cool idea