Game Fundamentals, part 1: The Meat and Potatoes (Questing)

bloodandthunder

I was going to post this in another thread about quest distances, but in typing a follow up to that thread I had already replied to, i realized I had a lot of ideas regarding questing that this game in particular can really benefit from:

EPIC STORY
I want to preface this with the notion that I dislike having multiple quests tell me to go from here to there and there to here and back again and upwards and downwards, and inside and outside. To me, with a subscription based model, if feels utterly cheap when games do this as it feels like the devs are just wasting my time with having me "walk" for most of my gameplay loop. I do not like having to do this ON THE REGULAR. That being said, I do see the merit of "adventuring" and think that if implemented correctly, can elicit a massive return on investment for both the players and the devs.

This is my take on the Epic Storylines:
1) One Epic Storyline that is class specific and has multiple paths it can branch off to, IE a "Good" arch, an "Evil" arch, and a "Neutral" arch.

2) This probably should be the main narrative players follow to gain bonus skill points upon completing quests. I'd put a big emphasis on this to be solo driven, but with a BIG caveat:
2B) The quests that give you bonus skill points should have a player defeat an NPC that is tailored to your base archetype's capabilities and should be a very challenging but soloable fight. However, the player can always enlist help from their guild if they want to.
2C) The "GOOD" arch could be more PVE focused while the "EVIL" arch is more "PVP" focused, the "NEUTRAL" arch could more artisan based, where you're not focused on combat, but rather crafting

3) The final quest of a character's Epic Story should be a group oriented event that is not tied to any one particular node, but definitely a high tier node like 5 or 6. This should likely be tied to the community in such a way that it affects your reputation one way or the other within the community (like partaking in attacking a metropolis and sacking it, or slaying an end game raid boss, or crafting a piece of legendary gear)

Other thoughts on Questing:
1) PLAYER DRIVEN QUESTS! - I really want to see bounty boards where players can post {Gather] quests (most likely in taverns or questing boards), [Kill Quests] i think COULD work but i don't know how well.
1B) For Kill Quests, with staying in theme of player driven content, these could be to either Kill a corrupt player, OR kill a specific world leader (king of a castle/mayor of a node). This is highly polarizing, and i wouldn't be surprised if this above everything else suggested here was not implemented, yes. BUT, this KILL QUEST would have massive ramifications on the future of that castle/node, 1 being that castle/metropolis gets a massive debuff during the next siege, and 2 posting this kind of quest is ILLEGAL and if posted in the wrong node can backfire on the poster, having authorities seize your goods and/or attack you on sight for a given period of time.
1C) For Gather quests, this could be a cool (maybe?) way to implement a reverse auction house system for nodes that aren't economic and don't have an auction house. It's not as easy, no, but it doesn't completely cripple that nodes ability to get goods to people willing to pay.

These are my current thoughts right now regarding questing, I'll be adding more threads on different subjects later throughout the alpha as i flesh out those thoughts. My goal is to keep each thread focused on one topic at a time.

Thanks for reading, and happy testing everyone

Magnumwood

I think the interaction between this epic quest lines idea with the traveling discussion strikes a good balance. The epic arc would take you around the world, but wouldn't necessarily be the core loop. I would suggest these could be tied to classes, religions, guilds(thieves guild, scholar's guild, etc.), or races.

Love the idea of player driven quests, ties in really well with nodes. The only downside is replayability. New World quickly figured out you can't have players do these things too many times over without getting extremely bored. And to get ahead of the nostalgia bros, the reality is that that kind of grindy boredom is unacceptable in current markets. I think the ideal scenario is localized narrative questlines as a core gameplay loop, and then taking these player quests as bonuses.

I think the assassination idea is great, but most likely belongs in a discussion about politics mechanics, and doesn't have so much to do with questing/leveling.

*Edits: grammar and clarification.

bloodandthunder

wrote:

"Love the idea of player driven quests, ties in really well with nodes. The only downside is replayability. New World quickly figured out you can't have players do these things too many times over without getting extremely bored. And to get ahead of the nostalgia bros, the reality is that that kind of grindy boredom is unacceptable in current markets. I think the ideal scenario is localized narrative questlines as a core gameplay loop, and then taking these player quests as bonuses.

Oh for sure! Player quests shouldn't be part of the core gameplay loop, just bit of extra spice. I know that the devs are trying to limit the available of goods, so depending on if and how they implement this, one way is to have a tavern with an NPC that would "collect" the trade goods and pay the player who turned the quest in, and then the poster of the quest can return to the tavern to pick up the trade goods or put them on a caravan and escort it to a neighboring node.

I think that it would be especially beneficial for players who's artisan skill lines are processing and crafting, with no ability to gather materials. They could post a repeatable quest saying "i will buy any and all of your gathered goods at this price" and other players can do the same to keep prices competitive. That's one way to streamline the process for players going down that route, but it doesn't have to stop there.

llmoodll

Event-type quests are a good type of immersion questing where you happen across something that occurs periodically and solve it. In FFXIV that'd be something like fates, in Rift, rifts. Say you happen across a farmhouse and a bandit attack is ensuing:
Rather than walking to a person and talking to them about it to receive a quest, you just straight up help them. Engage bandits, save the day, then if the people you're trying to protect are alive, they will express gratitude... or occasionally say something like, "hey, we had them. Get off my lawn!" etc...

My point: Quests should be varied not only in type, but in how they are received:
Area quests, zone quests, item drop quests, interesting marker observe quests, achievement based quests, collection quests (shinies), pvp flag quests, zone based kill/gather/travel/points of interest/vistas/quest hub completion final quests/zone completion quest hooks into hard final quests/jump puzzles/base jumping into holes/minigames/fishing and profession/treasure hunting/etc... There are myriad types of interesting quests that can be layered, and offer a customizable experience for wide audiences.

I should say that for event type quests having some randomization in how/where these occur would make it feel less stale in the long run if there isn't a reason otherwise to be near a particular event spawn (i.e. avoid having bored people camping an area for an event).

bloodandthunder

Event Quests are tricky to pull off. I liked the concept of them back when Warhammer Online introduced them to the world, but Guild Wars 2 took it to the level you are referring to and it feels cool the first time you enter a zone, but after it feels pointless.

I get the impression that AoC's take on this is the Caravan system, which is pretty lit if you ask me