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Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Suggestion: Make some quests retroactive when appropriate
Dreoh
Member, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Something I've only seen in a few games such as Warhammer Online and a few others (that I can't remember at the moment) I found very neat, convenient and immersive is kill quests taking into account your kill count of the mob from before you accepted the quest.
It's super nice to pick up a quest and be able to turn it in immediately because while you were out exploring the wilderness you happened to already cull the population the npc is asking you to cull. Not to mention it makes some sense immersion-wise.
Edit: Not to mention it helps foster exploration, as people will be more open to exploring and killing random mobs that they usually wouldn't if they feel it's not pointless trash mobs.
Example in my next comment below
Edit2: To clarify, not all quests have to be retroactive, just the ones that it makes sense for them to be. And them being retroactive doesn't mean you can't accept the quest and do it normally if you haven't completed any of the objectives yet. (I think that's where @Noanni got confused)
(Also edited title to be more accurate)
Edit3: A perfect example of the type of quest that could be Retroactive is the Hogger quest in vanilla/classic WoW. During normal questing in Elwynn Forest, you might come across this named NPC and think, "Oh, a named NPC, he must be important later".
Maybe you then kill him just because he's there, but then later get the quest and have to kill him again.
Maybe you don't because you figure or know you'll have to come kill him later.
Both of those issues can be solved by making the quest retroactive. Anyone in this thread complaining about random enemies not making sense being retroactive, what about named npcs that are quest objectives? If you killed him before you were able to get the quest, the quest considers him already slain. If you haven't yet, the quest prompts you to go kill him.
I will say, another alternative to this is better quest writing, and having quest NPC's only spawn if you have the quest and things like that, but for non-named NPC quests retroactivity, when the quest writing allows for it, would fit nicely.
It's super nice to pick up a quest and be able to turn it in immediately because while you were out exploring the wilderness you happened to already cull the population the npc is asking you to cull. Not to mention it makes some sense immersion-wise.
Edit: Not to mention it helps foster exploration, as people will be more open to exploring and killing random mobs that they usually wouldn't if they feel it's not pointless trash mobs.
Example in my next comment below
Edit2: To clarify, not all quests have to be retroactive, just the ones that it makes sense for them to be. And them being retroactive doesn't mean you can't accept the quest and do it normally if you haven't completed any of the objectives yet. (I think that's where @Noanni got confused)
(Also edited title to be more accurate)
Edit3: A perfect example of the type of quest that could be Retroactive is the Hogger quest in vanilla/classic WoW. During normal questing in Elwynn Forest, you might come across this named NPC and think, "Oh, a named NPC, he must be important later".
Maybe you then kill him just because he's there, but then later get the quest and have to kill him again.
Maybe you don't because you figure or know you'll have to come kill him later.
- In the first case, why then should you have to kill him again later just because "suddenly there's a quest to kill him". You killed him... he should be considered slain, right?
- In the second case, why should you even have to feel that way. Why should you feel discouraged (even in such a minor way) about killing something if you felt like it.
Both of those issues can be solved by making the quest retroactive. Anyone in this thread complaining about random enemies not making sense being retroactive, what about named npcs that are quest objectives? If you killed him before you were able to get the quest, the quest considers him already slain. If you haven't yet, the quest prompts you to go kill him.
I will say, another alternative to this is better quest writing, and having quest NPC's only spawn if you have the quest and things like that, but for non-named NPC quests retroactivity, when the quest writing allows for it, would fit nicely.
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Comments
That's a weird take lol
You're still doing quests, you're just doing them before you talk to the npc. (if you haven't done it beforehand you just do the quest like normal)
Not to mention it helps foster exploration, as people will be more open to exploring and killing random mobs that they usually wouldn't if they feel it's not pointless trash mobs.
Instead of it being
- "Go kill 10 wolves"
- But I was just there exploring the cool grove area and collecting resources and killing them as I ventured into it...
it's- -See cool grove full of trees to harvest and possible extra exploration goodies, but it's inhabited by wolves-
- Explore it, killing wolves as you go
- Eventually get to new questgiver nearby
- "Go kill 10 wolves"
- "Oh I've already killed 10 of those
- "Oh thank you! Well here's something for your trouble!"
It's that easy, obviously it would be better quest textAnd if you happen to not have explored the grove and killed the wolves yet then you just do the quest as you normally would.
Suddenly, exploring has so much more intrinsic value without really adding much at all
Edit: Added some clarification for new people in the thread.
But at the same time it makes me wonder if some NPCs shouldn't reward you for already doing the job for free.
Some NPCs could say: "Thanks, take this reward for help us", but maybe others could say: "Oh, did you already do the job? Thanks" and don't give you anything.
I would prefer to have a pop up quest instead of be completing quests I still don't have. Something like a pop up quest which say: "This wolfs could be a problem for the nearby node, kill them and travel to the node to speak with the soldiers".
Using the Nightbloom quest as an example. If I picked 5 Nightbloom while I was running around in the Cave and still have them on me when first speak to Eswyn, I should be able to turn them in to her and get credit.
But, if I have no proof to offer a quest giver that I've completed their quest, I shouldn't get credit for it.
Someone asks you to cull the Skeletons in the area and you tell them, "Yeah, I already did that so give me the reward." Even though there's still a whole bunch of Skeletons still running around. That's immersion-breaking.
Fits from a gamer perspective but not from an RPG perspective. Might be specifically from an MMORPG perspective, but I think even from a table top perspective that doesn't really work unless you have proof on you that you accomplished the goals of the quest giver.
If you rescue a kidnapped damsel and return her before being asked to do so, does the family still hand over a reward or do they just verbally thank you?
I think even in a high magic setting, quests just popping up out of nowhere when you enter an area is immersion-breaking... but, I tend to go with suspension of disbelief for that feature, when its implemented.
That's a fair point, and in those cases it could make sense for those quests to still force you to go back to the grove.
Even if all quests aren't retroactive, having the ones where it doesn't make sense in character to go back and redo what you did could help a lot with immersion and just some general quality of life.
Though I guess there's something to be said for padding out content by having you rehash stuff, though I think that's not really a good excuse.
I originally wrote this thread having that as another valid alternative, but then I realized that it had a major flaw in that how do you manage the worth of the resources you would turn in?
If wolves drop teeth, either the teeth are junk/trash items, or they are crafting materials.
If they are junk items the player's going to sell/throw them away probably before they ever meet the quest giver. If they realize junk items have that kind of worth, they're never going to want to not have them in case they need them.
If they are crafting materials, the player most likely isn't going to want to give those up for a quest.
If they are flagged as just being quest items, they just clutter the inventory, unless there's a quest item separate inventory, but then it's essentially just a kill record at that point.
You could have them be junk items but have an icon showing they are part of a quest, but that kind of breaks immersion because how would your character know such things?
I couldn't think of a good solution so I scrapped the idea mid-typing.
Many MMO's put the bulk of experience gain on quests, rather than on killing mobs. This is stupid.
If the bulk of experience is in mob kills, then going off exploring and killing what ever is in your way is intrinsically already worth doing - even if you don't find a quest associated with what you killed.
This seems to me to be a MUCH better way to make exploring more rewarding.
Neither, they are certificates. In this game you don't get straight up money as loot from wolves. You get 'certificates' like teeth and then you sell them to a vendor for money. The further the node you sell them to from which the wolves are located, the more money you get, but the higher the risk of getting killed and losing some of your wolf teeth.
In general, I understand the arguments for this retro-active quest idea, but I don't really agree with it ultimately. The lack of fast travel and weight makes being efficient a skill in the game. Remembering to clear up your inventory and lighten your load, picking up the quests and tools for gathering that you need before you embark on a journey, these are things the player is expected to do. Taking the time to explore the town/node, pick up all of the quests is also a part of this.
The biggest argument against this retro-active completion though, is that unlike theme park MMOs, quests in ashes will not always be available. You will have quests disappear and new ones come up as nodes level up, players will be able to commission quests via bulletin boards. This is a living breathing world and if you expect to do all the quests in one node and move on to the next, you are not getting the full picture here. There will be quests you simply can't do and more importantly, quests that you shouldn't do because they don't align with your other goals or are inefficient to path to etc. You should travel as you see fit and do quests that interest you and are efficient in terms of pathing etc. The game shouldn't really spoon-feed you xp for exploring, which btw requires no further incentivization than already is provided.
Am hoping there will be a very comprehensive back-end metrics system, in AoC.
Bro, you're still turning in quests and getting that quest xp, I dont think you're understanding lol
You're just doing the quest before you accept it but still turning it in like normal. The only xp you might be missing out on is having to (sometimes arbitrarily) re-kill enemies you've already killed and getting that second mob xp
The thing is, this isn't even a new concept. It's been done before.
That's just semantics. Wolf teeth was just an example, I'm aware that loot is handled via certificates. If you want to be pedantic just replace "wolf teeth" in my example with "wolf certificates".
Though certificates aren't the only thing going to be dropped from enemies btw, as some resources come from enemies.
Nothing about this changes the efficiency of the game like you're conveying. You're still doing everything you mentioned from clearing inventory, picking up tools and other expected activities. I'm not really sure how what you're saying goes against this here? Maybe I'm just not understanding.
I'm also very aware about the intended questing system, and I actually think it still fits very nicely into it.
Sure, maybe it doesn't make sense if an npc that appears after a node levels to Metropolis suddenly needs those wolf kills that you killed back when it was a Town node. To fix that you can just make the kills "time-relative" or in other words just have the kills essentially expire. This could be representative of many things. If a quest giver was wanting you to cull a population of wolves that had become overpopulated, and you say "oh I just did that" it makes sense. But in the Metropolis, if the same questgiver asks you that but you haven't touched wolves since it was a Town and your kills "expired" it would represent the wolves breeding and repopulating, etc. This is just a basic example of course.
Quest relevance doesn't really apply at all to what I was saying though. If a quest is relevant or not it doesn't matter.
The entire concept is "you kill some mushroom creatures on your adventure, and when you get back to town there's a new npc who suddenly wants you to kill mushrooms. So instead of having to go back out and kill mushrooms, you tell him you killed them already and he rewards you."
Or maybe even you only killed 3/10 mushrooms on that adventure, so now you only need to go out and kill 7 more. Whether this makes sense lore-wise is entirely up to the writing team and isn't difficult at all.
If there's no way to make a quest retroactive, just don't. Not all of them need to be retroactive, as I've stated before. Just having a decent portion helps with quality of life and immersiveness.
This is exactly what I'm arguing for though. You're actually making points for the system here. "You should travel as you see fit".
What better way to allow players to travel as they want than to do away with arbitrary "gamey" systems that just have you racking up kills to complete a "quest". Retroactive quests allow players to feel more free with their gameplay choices and not feel restricted into doing those optimal quests.
And all those retroactive quests still function as regular quests if you never did any of it's goals anymore, so that doesn't change at all.
Games always do things to incentivize exploration, because there's so many players who don't explore because they feel they are going to "fall behind" or aren't being "optimal" if they do go off the "optimal" path to explore. "Gamers will always optimize the fun out of a game" is one of the most accurate quotes I've ever heard and I see it happen all the time. If you allow more freedom and take away from the "optimal paths" you will find happier players and more immersed players.
How does this not change it? If I don't have to pick up my quests before I go out adventuring and can just pick them up after to have them retroactively be counted for, how does that not remove an entire item from my to do list before I leave town to adventure? Am I misunderstanding something?
No idea what I said to make you think I'm discussing lore here.
No you are arguing to not feel bad about exploring however you want if you forgot to pick up quests. What you are asking for reduces exploration as you don't have to revisit places in the world, which in this game can change with node lvl. Re-visiting can also lead to exploration by virtue of different pathing and leads to different adventures by virtue of different people being around etc. You are asking for a convenience feature that removes returning to places. It does nothing to help you travel as you see fit, it just removes the FOMO of not picking up quests. You are trying to help worry-warts explore who let FOMO prevent them from killing extra mobs lest they be quest objectives for a quest they haven't picked up yet. We do not need to pander to everyone's fears and anxiety to make them enjoy themselves...
Again, my main point is you don't have to do that quest if you don't want to return to the old location. You can explore all you want but the reality is if you forget to pick up a quest you could feel bad because you could have generated more xp per hour. But there is no clearly optimal way to lvl because quests are not static, so you can feel bad about not having had that quest but nobody is forcing you to go back and complete it, just play how you want. You will sometimes feel bad for your decisions, if you can't handle not being optimal in xp farming, there is too much risk/loss in this game for you.
I understand what you're trying to say but AoC already provides so many reasons to explore it's ridiculous. It also prevents players from optimizing by not having DPS meters etc. Optimizing pathing sounds a lot more dramatic than what I'm talking about. If you want to go foraging by the lake north of the node, forget about the quest that takes you 20 min south.
You also don't want to remove all sources of 'optimization' for fear of people 'optimizing the fun out of games'... I've also seen how group finders and homogenized classes killed games. I'm sure a strong argument there was 'we shouldn't have to optimize group compositions etc'. There is a certain degree to which you can't control the player base and can't forcibly lead them to enlightenment. If people don't want to explore in ashes with 100 reasons to do so, the 101st reason won't make the difference.
The game, and your character is 1 year old, you have 30+ from all ennemies of the game. So, the "kill ennemies" are mostly all finished the second you take them. Those quest are no quest anymore but instant free XP reward. and this untill IS add new ennemies, you will spend 30 killing a bunch of them again to have the related quest all done.
kill 30 wolf, and you can finish 100 time the quest "kill 30 wolfs" without moving anymore from the node.
Your idea comes from while you first explore the world, you had frustration of killing ennemies due to your curiosity and seeing after you have to kill them for a quest, and right, it is frustrating, but you just didnt think "what about after i played 1 years". and mainly because on other MMORPG, while you have finished an area quest, you won't see any ennemy of this region anymore while you do quest in the next region. the wolfs you killed in this lvl5 quest named "wolf" are not those of this lvl55 quest asking to kill "bloodthirst wolf"
On Ashes of Creation, this is different.thinking about "what in 3 month, 6 month, 1 year" with such idea is important
and the "kill count expiration" is not a solution. For a simple reason : it will never have a "good timing"
15 minutes ? Not enough if you really explored and the quest is about the first ennemies you encountered.
2h ? already long time. With randomized quest, you could do this on 2 or three quest with the sames wolves...
I already addressed this exact issue in the original response I made to Dygz from which you originally quoted, you just took one line out of that whole comment out of context of the entire comment.
Nobody said you can't pick up those quests. You can still pick them up and do them as normal. Nothing about normal questing is changing when you ad retroactivity. @Noanni I think got the same wrong impression you have right here too. The only thing different is they also have retroactive functionality when applicable. If it doesn't make sense for a quest to be retroactive, it doesn't have to be. There seems to be some kind of misconception that I was arguing that retroactive quests are only retroactive or that they'll be the only kinds of quest. They're literally just normal quests that also take into account recent activity if they want to. This misunderstanding might have been my fault because in the original post I was too specific.
That was more of a pre-emptive line of thought I had to get in before someone might think it's not possible through lore/writing reasons.
I would argue having to not feel bad about exploring is EXACTLY the point. "Gamers will always optimize the fun out of a game" is something that happens because they feel bad about exploring because they aren't doing things they "should" be doing and perceive themselves as falling behind players that are doing only optimal gameplay. They way you counter that is by removing opportunities for optimization or making more things actually viable. You're actually arguing for a theme-park MMO experience when you try to restrict freedoms in the argument you're using.
The Re-visiting issue is also not a problem. When nodes level up it's already confirmed new enemies spawn in areas nearby and zones change and evolve. That enough is a reason to go back and explore again.
If that's not enough, the "kill count expiration" idea I mentioned earlier also helps fix that issue.
Yes. This does help "worry-worts" who let FOMO prevent them from doing things. You say this like it's a bad thing. It honestly comes off a little "gate-keepy". You're saying "If you aren't playing as hardcore as possible you're not doing it right". You're quite literally embodying the "Gamers optimize fun out of a game" persona here.
I honestly don't understand why this seems like such a bad idea to you all. It literally changes nothing about the normal MMO experience. It only adds more freedom to actually enjoy the world. The only thing I can attribute it to is fear of change or gate keeping arbitrary "hardcore" game mechanics.
I don't understand how this goes against what I'm saying. You're arguing that because we already have reasons to explore we can't have more? That makes absolutely no sense. The argument is essentially "They should be inconvenienced because I was inconvenienced in the past". It's not forward-thinking at all.
It's not a zero-sum scenario. You can continue to remove optimization sources where applicable. Sure there should be some avenues in which optimization is nice, but you're literally arguing "we have x of z so we can't have more z because more z is unnecessary" but giving no valid reasons why it's unnecessary.
And sure, you can't control the playerbase, but you can very well direct the flow.
I've addressed this in one of my previous comments
Edit: And as I've stated before, retroactivity would only be added where applicable. It seems everyone thinks I was saying every quest needs to always take into account everything you've done before. That's not the case at all.
Player finds strange item. Happens not to sell it. Player comes across npc looking for some1 to recover said item. Player goes "here you go".
What is the argument against this?
I'm saying there is already no way to be optimal in this game, you can't write lvling guides because the world is constantly changing so nobody can test or prove what is optimal. If anything I'm saying it's not practical to try to optimize so there is no point having FOMO about it because it's all in your head. But somehow, again, you completely misrepresent my argument with such confidence...
It doesn't add any freedom, it just has that illusion because people expect AoC to be like the other MMOs they've played where there is a clear 'optimal'. The world changes too much and too fast, and OW-PvP makes it such that any good strategy to farm (xp, resources, w.e) gets dangerous as it gets popular so people won't share strategy or it will change by virtue of being shared. You are trying to solve a problem that AoC won't even have. Either that or you hate backtracking but then you say the revisiting is not an issue, so I don't know what to tell you.
I'm truly amazed as to how you can twist my written arguments, which you can re-read. I didn't say you can't have more reasons to explore. My point is if the many many reasons we have to explore don't motivate someone, this single additional reason will not do the trick either, so if (one of?) your arguments for this change is "it will promote exploration", it's a weak argument. The burden of proof is not on me to explain why your proposed system is unnecessary... the burden of proof for any addition to a game which is threatened by feature creep and is already going to be massively delayed from what was originally proposed is on you. If you don't have enough compelling arguments as to why your addition to the game is good, and it only marginally further motivates exploration, then it's not worth implementing.
Anyways, you have an uncanny ability to twist arguments so I doubt I'll reply again. Ultimately I think it won't have much of an impact one way or the other if you have retroactive quest tracking, I personally don't like the idea but won't give a shit if it makes it in the game. I think the questing system is fine as it is.
Edit: How else would that work? Nobody is saying you should have to destroy the item, and go find it again to turn in the quest. That's not what is being discussed here, the discussion is if you are told go kill 10 ogres and you already killed a bunch should you be able to say, oh yeah I already did that where is my reward? Or should you have to go back and kill 10 more ogres.
Why this wolf killing quest could be retroactiv, and not this other one ? What makes them different, what justify to not have a simple "kill 10 wolf" sometime have this retroactivity, and sometimes not ?
This is why we think you are saying "every killing quest" because there is no reason some does and some does not
There is already some games where first you find an object lost, and then you give it to a NPC you didnt see before... there is no "retroactivity" the items gives the quest.
And if you say "i killed the bandit chief, and fount a letter or his body that could interest the local guard captain" Yes... but this way, lets have all quest item lootable, and lets see if our bag likes it. But, again there will be things that will feel really absurd... i kill a strange monster and drop the heart, i don't know what to do with it, but i have it. i travel it and randomly after 1 month, i find a NPC that could use that heart... ok but her speak about "logic"... in one month the heart i fount is not as fresh as i fount it, does it continue to work?
and putting timer to everything to limit retroactivity will just add lot of useless thing to character data just for an idea that will help exploration.
Also i read "Gamers will always optimize the fun out of a game" Some yes, other don't do this.
Here the fun getting out is exploration
but... No you change nothing about this. ok, the 10 minutes you spent to fight wolves are not lost... lets speak about the 30 or 40 other minutes you lost just running here or there to try to get to the spot you wanted to see, and then coming back. Instead of losing 40minutes you lost only 30... it remains clearly "unoptimized" gameplay.
Some people just play to win, and... i have no problem with it. some others just play to enjoy what they want to enjoy.
Most of time, there is variation between both. at different level.
You consider than rushing the highest level is not fun so... ok, some like it. Also, some does it to ... do exploration after and enjoy it after the "not fun part" of reaching max lvl is done.
Exploring even with this idea will totally remains "non optimized" just a little less...
BUT the quest will come back when the node will return to village/town.
So, there is 2 way to do this
1) each time a node level or delevel, for all character of the server, the counter of ennemies related to the quests of this node are reset to 0 => heavyweight for server. Also, i think some ennemies will be same for close nodes. how to do it for one node and not other. bigger and bigger database for each character? (wolf for quest A, wolf for quest B, etc)
2) each ennemy you kill is considered kill for X time. or a real timer (like 2 hours?) but it will do a LOT of chrono turning in background. All reset at defined daily time ? Maybe the less worst way to do it.
I don't know how quest are generated, so it will works with id and other shits, but your idea feels really heavy for servers just for small profit...
The point of the game, and of the quest, is to do things in the world. Speeding things up by avoiding living in the world is not good design, in my opinion.
So you are telling me that you played witcher 3, you happened to kill a griffin, you happened to come across a quest giver who wanted you to kill that griffin, the queat giver said "go to the peak and kill that griffin", and instead of clicking "I killed your griffin, here is the head", you said fck this, I am not handing in that quest.
As I've stated many times in this thread and even updated the original post to reflect it, it would obviously be for quests that it makes sense for.
I've given many examples of why it could make sense for some and not for others, in fact all quests could be retroactive, it entirely depends on how you write them.
to this ritual that just started.
Just like @neuroguy, none of this right here is an argument against implementing this. You're once again saying "let's not add more quality of life mechanics because we already have too many quality of life mechanics".
1) I don't think you understand how data accumulation for characters works. The kills wouldn't be tied to the node, they'd be tied to the character's "save file". There also wouldn't need to be different wolves. There could be a quest in Node A that needs 5 "Tundra Wolf", and a quest in Node B that needs 8 "Tundra Wolf". If you kill 6 "Tundra Wolf" and then go to both quests, Quest A (if it's retroactive) will let you complete it, while Quest B (if retroactive) will tell you you only have 6 out of 8 "Tundra Wolves" killed. This is also no different than if you had picked up both quests before you went out and killed them. Literally no difference, except you can be happy that you were fortunate to have killed "Tundra Wolves" while you were out and about.
2) I am a programmer, and a game programmer at that. None of this is actually that difficult. I've coded "chrono turning" (as you put it) many times. It actually takes very little resources to calculate. The only worry here is that it slightly increases data for players, but that's a very negligible amount. Literally any game with a "you've killed x of y creatures in your total playtime" does this without any issue.
I don't think you've read through this. Absolutely none of the normal questing experience everyone knows and is used to changes. It literally just adds extra quality of life on top of it.
Also, this actually promotes going out and doing things in the world of your own volition, of which AoC is built upon. Steven has said many times that he wants to promote people creating their own adventure with their own story. This only helps build upon that. It in absolutely no way stops you from "living in the world". It actually makes it so that you're living in the world even more. If it does, nobody here has come up with a reason why it wouldn't, though I'm sure there might be as there is no perfect system.
Here is the matter, you are too obsessed thinking your idea is good you dont even read what is said...
never said we had already many quality of life thing, didnt speak about it.
i said that your idea doesnt even solve the matter you point out !
You say "people dont do exploration because it is time loss" ok... but most of this time lost is not bind to killing ennemies while exploring but just walking...
For the data and chrono on each character for each ennemy they kill : i fear about the weight of this on the server. it is nothing for one character but for thousands...
And to finish "if the quest ask to reduce the wolf population then, retroactiv, if sacrifice sure not" ok, it is logic in a RP side. but, it doesnt answer my question. What will define if the devs for this quest should prefer do a retroactiv one, or a non retroactiv one ?
the only answer i see is "random"
and so, lets go on forum for asking more and more "retroactiv one" or protesting about this thing by asking more "non retroative one" ...
oh and i come back about the "too much QoL" you thought i said ... there is MANY quality of life thing i don't want and i think you don't want in ashes. There are also some that have to be in a modern MMORPG. QoL is not an argument to see if it is good or bad.
No...
Because : i do exploration, i visit, i kill ennemies i want, i finally stay there finding some lore thing (archeology time) or any shit, then i return to my progress. The simple fact i have to come back to this place to kill ennemies for quest so will makes me more live in the game, return there, and maybe while returning to kill ennemies, my eyes will catch i thing i didnt see the first time !
You speak in the thought most people just focus leveling, because they "optimize fun out of the game" Yes, some does this. i sometime do this. yes. really but i never thought was a matter. in those case, the only ennemy of my fun was not the game design but me. I know how i am, and is the same thing IRL for lot of subjects.
And finally, most of time when i just brainlessly farm, i am having fun, i play the game i like, and i know doing what i do will allow me to go to what i want most, this will be a reword, i enjoy a lot doing brainless shit just for this reward
When i just get bored of spam quest/grind, just said "fuck it lets do useless shit" and go to discover area, go RP, sit in a corner and just speak in /global. and so much useless thing that are not even possible to make them "optimized"
Would it make the game "more fun" to be able to do the two at once ? the answer is easy to find when you ask yourself this question
"Does happiness exist in a world where no one is sad at any time?"
I never said it completely solves people not exploring, it's simply another factor that helps promote it.
Why are you so against the idea of more quality of life? Every argument so far has been either "We don't need it because we already have quality of life", or "it's not a cure-all so it's worthless"
As for data, like I said, it's extremely negligible. Kills on enemies are already tracked by most games, though usually just for debugging and analytics purposes. This is a non-issue.
What?
You do know that every quest and everything in fiction is "random" as you put it. Literally everything in fiction is arbitrary.
Though it's absolutely not random. All it takes is the quest writers to think, "Oh, this quest I was already writing could also be retroactive because it makes sense for it to be".
Or, it could be "I will write this quest to allow retroactivity."
The funny thing about writing fiction, is it can be molded however you want it to be molded.
You ask, "What will define if the devs for this quest should prefer to do retroactive or not?"
The answer is as simple as...
If they want to write it that way
You're right, and this is a sentiment I completely agree with. I think unrestrained flying mounts and auto-dungeon finders and many more "convenience systems" are MMO killers.
The difference is those are anti-immersive/game-breaking. The purpose of this is only to add immersion and freedom of gameplay. It doesn't change any fundamentals of the game.
You're not understanding that none of that changes. With my suggestion you literally do all of that exactly as you always have. Those quests that warrant you to go back to those places still exist. All of that still exists. I cannot comprehend how you think they won't.
The only difference is some quests will take into account some previous exploits of yours. You're acting like this suggestion turns the game inside out.
And what if that useless shit was taken into account?
Disclaimer: I'm not advocating for this because it's not at all feasable, but what if NPC's took into account that you sat around for 30 minutes talking in global by mentioning it in their dialogue. "Oh hello Aeiana, are you looking for a job to do? You look well rested, that break you took did you good"
As I said, the above example is an extreme and definitely not something that would ever happen, but how can you not see the value in helping accommodate freedom of play?
First part "will exist for some quest" that where chose randomly to allow this to continue to exist.
We see this as black and white for 2 reason
1) Do this, and what after, some people will ask for more "retroactiv quest" to spawn, will argue more and more reason to say "this could apply in those quest
Sometime, a no is not only because this idea is bad, but because it opens a dangerous door.
2) the simple fact that only "some quest" even if 90% make it a loss for 10%. there is a loss
Second part, "accomodate freedom of play"
but... it won't change ANYTHING in my freedom of play. with or without this idea, i will continue to explore the world when i have desire to do this.
Your question can come in other ways.
" but how can you not see the value in helping accommodate freedom of play?"
but how can you not see the value in following meta for better performance?
but how can you not see the value in reading quest to understand the lore?
And go could on other.
I totally understand you way to think, i find your idea bad, but not silly,
and maybe if i had more trust in human, i would be less against it (opening a dangerous door would be no more a problem).
But i see big risk, a little loss, for a really low gain. The gain of not "losing" 10 minutes to return to kill wolves a place my curiosity made me explore is close to no gain.
This is why i "can't see the value" of your idea. and maybe i was not clear, my posts just try to show why i don't feel it could be a so good thing
This isn't a complex enough idea to make it possible to get the wrong impression.
The idea is that the game keeps track of literally every single mob you have killed, and when you pick up a quest that requires you to kill a number of a specific mob, it checks against this list to see how many you have killed so far and updates the quest accordingly.
Nothing at all complex about that (from an idea perspective, it is potentially quite complex from a development perspective), and the notion you think people would get the wrong idea on something so basic is frankly insulting.
However, just because the idea is easily understood, that doesn't mean others need to think it is a good idea.
The notion of the story behind kill quests in most games is one of two things - either there is a mass of the mob type in question (in which case the quest is usually repeatable), or the NPC is after a specific part of the mob in question (in which case the quest is usually a part of a quest chain).
For the first of these, your idea instantly makes the notion of a repeating quest to kill a type of mob impossible. As soon as you kill the requisite number of the mob, you can just get the quest and complete it instantly as much as you like. So, this automatic completion simply can't work on these quests.
For the second of these two - the NPC being after a specific part of the target mob - it makes absolutely no sense that we would have known someone wanted the spleen (as an example) of a specific mob, so there is no way we would have collected it. Getting the specific part of the specific mob is driving the story forward.
So, that is why I posted this as the first reply to your idea My second post, that you seem to think indicates that I got the wrong idea about your suggestion, is actually offering a fix to the real issue rather than a band-aid. It seems you are the one that didn't understand.
You want to make exploring more worth while, and so think that making it so that you may occasionally get retroactive quest credit will assist in this. This is because in most games, killing mobs isn't really beneficial, especially while leveling. Rather, completing quests is where the real progression and reward comes from.
An example of this in a game I played for a while saw me given a quest to kill 10 bears. Each bear offered 252 experience, so for killing 10 of them I gained 2,520 experience, and I didn't receive any drops at all from the 10 bears. The quest though, turning that in gave me 35,000 experience, some gold and a piece of armor that I used for a few levels.
So, of the 37,520 experience I gained in that time period, less than 10% of it was from killing things, even if we ignore other rewards. This makes just going out and killing things unrewarding in comparison to just mindlessly doing quests.
You seem to think that is bad, and I agree.
However, your suggestion is not a solution to that problem, as the quest would still need to be completed - you just may be able to get credit for it before you pick the quest up (which makes no real sense to anyone that reads quest text or listens to NPC's).
If you flip that and make it so that killing mobs is where the progression and reward comes from, and quests are simply there to direct players to mobs, then just going out exploring is exactly as worth it from a reward perspective as doing quests.
In the above example, it should be that killing the bears offers 3,500 experience each, and the quest offered 2,520 experience (not really, as this would require a rebalance of experience - but that is an advanced concept that I don't wish to bother you with as you are unlikely to understand).
Any theoretical examples would be appreciated.
Why is it bad for more and more quests that could be retroactive to be retroactive? How is that a bad thing? You mention a "dangerous door" and others in this thread have said it'll have negative effects, but no one has given any examples. The only examples I have been given were by people who didn't read through the whole post and said something I already accounted for or doesn't make sense in context.
It does change your freedom of play. How many times have you seen a random cave and skipped it because you don't have any quests telling you to go there yet?
What if that didn't matter as much and during the entire time you play, you felt like anything you do could matter later.
Sure it's a minor thing, but that type of issue is a reason for many to hesitate to explore. This is just one solution to help those people. It's not amazing for everyone I know, but it is for those people.
I begin to answer about the cave : if the cave make me curious... i goes in, don't care about quests. Was it when discovered mmorpg with everquest, when i was on wow release and all time from then. i was lvl max after others, yes but never stopped me to do high end content when i wanted to do it. And now, even less a mater, i dont want to have some specific days each week totally locked due to raiding or things... I know lot of people that don't play MMORPG with end game content as main objectiv. it is not rare kind of people.
And for example, i said one, you answered "it will again exist because not all quest will be retroactiv"
Why having more retroactiv quest could be bad?
if it is 10% right, it is not a lot
25% ? it begins to feel, but have to play
50%? 75% 90% with only some special bind to lore/main story?
Where is the good limit. some people would say 90% other 10%
But when we reach too many retroactiv quest, questing becomes just "speak NPC to get reward"
Maybe a game designed to include such system would work well also. as i said in another topic. a good game is not just Feature A + B + C + D + E. But you have to include all the feature (the idea and the way they work) in a global idea/philosophy. and probably there is some way to do a game where this idea is a really good one.
but not in a game like what i understand AoC will be. Becuase the gain is really low, to not even fulfill entirely the problem it wants to solve.
You asked me how many time i did not enter a cave because "quest" my answer was "all time if the cave didnt spoke to my curiosity" (and without quest maybe i would enter... maybe not so).
I explained that i didnt care this time lost.
I estimate that killing ennemies while doing exploration is never more than 50% of the exploration time. I understand now, you prefer focus on quest and do 0 exploration due to the time lost. But the fact the time lost will remain quite big (and considering that 100% of "killing during exploration" time will be usefull for a quest...). S For this i consider that this is not a big gain. because it solves nothing, except making leveling a little bit faster for people who likes exploring a lot.