There shouldn't be quest markers.

At least if exploration is supposed to be a part of the gameplay. In a game where you're supposed to explore the world, having quest markers that tell you precisely where to go is like having an FPS with an in-built aimbot. I think it's better to have the quest describe where to go based on proximity to landmarks. EG - "We've been having trouble with dire bears attacking travelers. We discovered a den of dire bears to the west of the ancient pillars to the south of here. Go cut down their numbers so they stop venturing out into the roads".

It's also a nifty way of getting players to pay attention to quest texts and conversations with NPCs, since they know they need to read it to know where to go and what to do. You can throw bits of lore into the texts to familiarize players with the story of the setting without resorting to big exposition dumps. So, for instance, you could throw in a line about how the ancient pillars were built by the old empire or that the dire bears are normally peaceful, but are being twisted by demonic corruption or whatever.

Anyway, my ten cents.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

pgt1027

Maezriel wrote: »

pgt1027 wrote: »

Maezriel wrote: »

Adding them as a toggle should be easy enough...let those who want to just rip through the levels do so and those who'd rather take their time do that

Can't agree with that. Not, at least, if exploration is supposed to be a part of the gameplay.

Like I said, it's as if you had an FPS with an in-built aimbot. And what is an aimbot? It's almost universally thought of as a cheat, because it streamlines and automates a core element of the gameplay and thus gives those that use it an unfair advantage. The same goes with quest markers, they do the job of exploration for you just like an aimbot does the job of aiming for you. And once you allow cheats, they quickly become the new standard and anyone who isn't using them is playing sub-optimally.

I mean, it's questing...not an auto-clicker for the boss fight

I turn off breadcrumb trails and quest markers in every other game I play such as Skyrim and Fable b/c that's how I like to play, but there are times where I just want to turn off my brain and check things off the list so having the option is fine and doesn't affect your gameplay in the slightest

Skyrim and Fable are singleplayer games. This is a multiplayer game.

This is, once again, if exploration is supposed to be a part of the gameplay. If you think that it's okay for players to essentially cheat through it, you're saying that it's not a part of the gameplay and therefore can be skipped entirely.

Songcaller

There will be levelling and quest guides on the internet. Gone are the days of 56k and single core cpus. In this day and age nothing is sacred.

Maezriel

pgt1027 wrote: »

Maezriel wrote: »

pgt1027 wrote: »

Maezriel wrote: »

Adding them as a toggle should be easy enough...let those who want to just rip through the levels do so and those who'd rather take their time do that

Can't agree with that. Not, at least, if exploration is supposed to be a part of the gameplay.

Like I said, it's as if you had an FPS with an in-built aimbot. And what is an aimbot? It's almost universally thought of as a cheat, because it streamlines and automates a core element of the gameplay and thus gives those that use it an unfair advantage. The same goes with quest markers, they do the job of exploration for you just like an aimbot does the job of aiming for you. And once you allow cheats, they quickly become the new standard and anyone who isn't using them is playing sub-optimally.

I mean, it's questing...not an auto-clicker for the boss fight

I turn off breadcrumb trails and quest markers in every other game I play such as Skyrim and Fable b/c that's how I like to play, but there are times where I just want to turn off my brain and check things off the list so having the option is fine and doesn't affect your gameplay in the slightest

Skyrim and Fable are singleplayer games. This is a multiplayer game.

This is, once again, if exploration is supposed to be a part of the gameplay. If you think that it's okay for players to essentially cheat through it, you're saying that it's not a part of the gameplay and therefore can be skipped entirely.

I'm saying equating it to cheating is a false analogy

Questing is largely a solo to small party experience and players should be allowed to go at it how they see fit...questing is mostly for lore and story not end game items and abilities so there's no real loss to you if I want to quest w/ some markers guiding the way

The only way it's remotely a loss is in the speed leveling sense and I don't think that's enough to completely warrant lack of help to those that would prefer it

pgt1027

Maezriel wrote: »

pgt1027 wrote: »

Maezriel wrote: »

pgt1027 wrote: »

Maezriel wrote: »

Adding them as a toggle should be easy enough...let those who want to just rip through the levels do so and those who'd rather take their time do that

Can't agree with that. Not, at least, if exploration is supposed to be a part of the gameplay.

Like I said, it's as if you had an FPS with an in-built aimbot. And what is an aimbot? It's almost universally thought of as a cheat, because it streamlines and automates a core element of the gameplay and thus gives those that use it an unfair advantage. The same goes with quest markers, they do the job of exploration for you just like an aimbot does the job of aiming for you. And once you allow cheats, they quickly become the new standard and anyone who isn't using them is playing sub-optimally.

I mean, it's questing...not an auto-clicker for the boss fight

I turn off breadcrumb trails and quest markers in every other game I play such as Skyrim and Fable b/c that's how I like to play, but there are times where I just want to turn off my brain and check things off the list so having the option is fine and doesn't affect your gameplay in the slightest

Skyrim and Fable are singleplayer games. This is a multiplayer game.

This is, once again, if exploration is supposed to be a part of the gameplay. If you think that it's okay for players to essentially cheat through it, you're saying that it's not a part of the gameplay and therefore can be skipped entirely.

I'm saying equating it to cheating is a false analogy

Questing is largely a solo to small party experience and players should be allowed to go at it how they see fit...questing is mostly for lore and story not end game items and abilities so there's no real loss to you if I want to quest w/ some markers guiding the way

The only way it's remotely a loss is in the speed leveling sense and I don't think that's enough to completely warrant lack of help to those that would prefer it

Why not add a function that allows you to automatically complete quests? It could be toggled off or on for whichever players want to use it or not.

I think many people would disagree with such a thing on the principle that it's skipping gameplay. The normalization of quest markers has given people the impression that exploration isn't "real" gameplay and is, at best, a self-imposed challenge.

And that's precisely what exploration is if you have a game with "optional" quest markers: a self-imposed challenge rather than a core element of the gameplay.

I also don't really agree with the viewpoint that questing in general isn't a real part of the gameplay on the same level as high end raiding. I see questing as a legitimate part of the game, not a road bump to max level raiding and PVP.

Maezriel

pgt1027 wrote: »

Why not add a function that allows you to automatically complete quests? It could be toggled off or on for whichever players want to use it or not.

I think many people would disagree with such a thing on the principle that it's skipping gameplay. The normalization of quest markers has given people the impression that exploration isn't "real" gameplay and is, at best, a self-imposed challenge.

And that's precisely what exploration is if you have a game with "optional" quest markers: a self-imposed challenge rather than a core element of the gameplay.

I also don't really agree with the viewpoint that questing in general isn't a real part of the gameplay on the same level as high end raiding. I see questing as a legitimate part of the game, not a road bump to max level raiding and PVP.

Please don't do that. Don't pull the same tired lazy technique that everyone on the internet does when having a conversation/debate...you know full well there's a difference between having a general area highlighted for a quest and having it auto-completed.

I've never once said, or even suggested, that exploration isn't real gameplay...merely that some might have little to no interest in it and their ability to skip it/fast lane it has no bearing on you. I don't like crafting and will likely do nothing w/ it outside of farm some oddball materials and buy gear from other players...My lack of active crafting will have no effect on others and I'd never suggest to just have it removed and just have NPC merchants in it's place.

On top of that there are multiple types of questing in AoC and for some of them, such as simple Events & Tasks, could work just fine w/ markers whereas deeper quest, such as Narrative and Epic, can forgo markers to encourage more exploration.

Marcet

I agree a lot on this.

pgt1027

Maezriel wrote: »

pgt1027 wrote: »

Why not add a function that allows you to automatically complete quests? It could be toggled off or on for whichever players want to use it or not.

I think many people would disagree with such a thing on the principle that it's skipping gameplay. The normalization of quest markers has given people the impression that exploration isn't "real" gameplay and is, at best, a self-imposed challenge.

And that's precisely what exploration is if you have a game with "optional" quest markers: a self-imposed challenge rather than a core element of the gameplay.

I also don't really agree with the viewpoint that questing in general isn't a real part of the gameplay on the same level as high end raiding. I see questing as a legitimate part of the game, not a road bump to max level raiding and PVP.

Please don't do that. Don't pull the same tired lazy technique that everyone on the internet does when having a conversation/debate...you know full well there's a difference between having a general area highlighted for a quest and having it auto-completed.

I've never once said, or even suggested, that exploration isn't real gameplay...merely that some might have little to no interest in it and their ability to skip it/fast lane it has no bearing on you. I don't like crafting and will likely do nothing w/ it outside of farm some oddball materials and buy gear from other players...My lack of active crafting will have no effect on others and I'd never suggest to just have it removed and just have NPC merchants in it's place.

On top of that there are multiple types of questing in AoC and for some of them, such as simple Events & Tasks, could work just fine w/ markers whereas deeper quest, such as Narrative and Epic, can forgo markers to encourage more exploration.

I guess it should be noted that exploration is mostly an element of the questing experience, and no one is forcing anyone to go questing. If you don't want to explore, you can grind NPCs outside of town, that's a perfectly legitimate way of leveling up. But I don't think the questing experience needs to be tailored to grinders. If you wanna just go grind, go grind.

Maezriel

pgt1027 wrote: »

I guess it should be noted that exploration is mostly an element of the questing experience, and no one is forcing anyone to go questing. If you don't want to explore, you can grind NPCs outside of town, that's a perfectly legitimate way of leveling up. But I don't think the questing experience needs to be tailored to grinders. If you wanna just go grind, go grind.

At the exact same time if you want to explore you're welcome to do that...I did it for a long time in Vanilla WoW. There were no quest at the Hidden Troll Village, no interactable NPCs at the Dwarf Airport, and nothing under Ironforge but I still enjoyed discovering those areas.

There can be a middle ground, there's no good reason it has to be all or nothing. There's a reason quest markers exists in the first place and it's b/c for every feel good story of exploration and wonder in Morrowind...there's just as many of you being sent to a "cave far away" and being straight frustrated and lost for 2 hours not realizing that it's just over the hill from the NPC.

I'm in no way saying every single quest needs to hold your hand from start to finish, but there should be some indication of where in a general area to go to complete a quest and it's fairly easy to make that indicator a toggle for those that would forego it.

Ostaff

My vote is to just let them keep things the way they are and how they have planned for it to be. They are wanting this to be an old school style.. which means leaving out all the new modern styles that most of the people coming in soon will be calling for.

Cypher

Make gaming interesting again. Let’s have the smallest amount of hand-holding quest markers as possible. I miss the days of actually having to look for something.

And to the peeps who suggest “just turn your quest markers off then”... No. I won’t. Take Skyrim for example. The game’s quests were so lazily done that you cannot actually glean the necessary information you need just from the quest log. You actually must have the waypoints in most cases. That’s awful. I get some things being marked on a map, like a dungeon location that an NPC literally says “here I’ll mark that on your map for you” but for most cases, I want intrepid to rely on the journal/quest log for giving information and not waypoints.

Child Item