No quest related waypoints.

I think the number one worst thing about modern MMOs is they show you exactly where to go. No-one is confused about where to go, so naturally people don't group up, there is 0 incentive to read the quests because it's unnecessary for completing the quest and you could spend that time you would be reading getting ahead of everyone else in levels and content.
(If anyone doesn't like that mindset, I hate to tell you that the best guilds pay attention to who levels the fastest and who gets attuned the quickest, ect. Whether or not you get in raids week one or week three depends on how fast you do content.)

I have no idea whether ashes plans to have waypoints for quests or shown quest areas, but I'm pleading that they DO NOT.
Let us not feel disadvantaged for reading the quests, and let people be a little confused as to where to go sometimes. That extends the shelf life of, in my opinion, the best part of the mmorpg experience; Leveling.

TLDR:

No waypoints=
+Reading quests
+More Groups
+Longer Leveling

Waypoints=
+Mindless quest training like New World
+People only group once they realize they can't do something solo
+Faster leveling=Faster Endgame Meta

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Azherae

This is probably always going to be controversial because it's not really an immersion question. I don't think that's even just my opinion...

If a quest giver NPC (specifically, it can't be a book, it can't be a random tablet or inscription) has a quest for you, and you have a map, most of the time that person is going to be able to mark for you on your map where you need to approximately go.

I basically feel that the game can have both, they can make a few quests for explorers and 'historians' that don't give you any way to know exactly where to go.

But the majority of 'go here do this' quests, even though I absolutely prefer when the location is not marked and I get a mild positive feeling from 'Oh I know where that is!'... It's not unrealistic that you 'know exactly where to go'.

They could do the BDO thing where your map isn't accessible when you're in areas that are supposed to be properly confusing to navigate, though. And of course, the 'fog of war' style map intention could be used to resolve this, by making it so that players who don't have the 'fog' for the area cleared, don't have the marker.

Everything else should probably be handled by changing spawn locations, imo.

Ludullu

You do realize what this will create right? 3rd party sites (if not programs) that will just tell you where to go. Afaik WoW players had addons for that shit back in vanilla (or at least classic).

The only ones who'd enjoy this are the RPers who want to "live" in this world and people who enjoy reading/story. Everyone else will be annoyed and will immediately go look up where to go.

This then leads to that very speedrunning that you want to avoid, because the smart people will realize that if they make guides first - that's views and that's money.

I love reading quests and immersing myself in the game's world, but those wow addons were made for a reason. And the reason is - the masses don't want to immerse themselves, they just want to "win".

Vissox

Azherae wrote: »

This is probably always going to be controversial because it's not really an immersion question. I don't think that's even just my opinion...

If a quest giver NPC (specifically, it can't be a book, it can't be a random tablet or inscription) has a quest for you, and you have a map, most of the time that person is going to be able to mark for you on your map where you need to approximately go.

I'm not saying the NPC should not tell you where to go, but it shouldn't be marked on your map. It should be like "You will find my rare herbs along the road where I dropped them, west of the tower of karthen"

That is enough context for a player to find something, and it requires them to take a second to read the quest, and in turn understand why they are doing what they are doing. All of those seconds add up to extend the leveling experience in a non artificial way, that for lore enjoyers like me is also fun. I don't want to have to choose between leveling efficiently and understanding why I'm doing what I'm doing.

Azherae wrote: »

And of course, the 'fog of war' style map intention could be used to resolve this, by making it so that players who don't have the 'fog' for the area cleared, don't have the marker.

This is off topic, but this is the type of map finding I enjoy.

Vissox

NiKr wrote: »

You do realize what this will create right? 3rd party sites (if not programs) that will just tell you where to go. Afaik WoW players had addons for that shit back in vanilla (or at least classic).

The only ones who'd enjoy this are the RPers who want to "live" in this world and people who enjoy reading/story. Everyone else will be annoyed and will immediately go look up where to go.

This then leads to that very speedrunning that you want to avoid, because the smart people will realize that if they make guides first - that's views and that's money.

I love reading quests and immersing myself in the game's world, but those wow addons were made for a reason. And the reason is - the masses don't want to immerse themselves, they just want to "win".

Those sites always exist, it's true, but that doesn't mean that the developers have to give up on an immersive experience before the game has even begun. It also takes a while for those types of addons and websites to get developed. In Vanilla Wow, thotbot is what people used and it had a lot of missing entrys because people still had to do those quests. it wasnt untill TBC that their database was actually flushed out and developed to the extent of the game.

I'm also uninterested in what the masses want. That's why we want this game isn't it? It's for the niche of people who actually like to play true RPGs, where your class can't do everything and you need to be one with that.

Enigmatic Sage

I'm not really in favour of encouraging GPS gaming, I actually read the quests and enjoy the adventure especially for the first play through. Sure there will probably be some website with guides for quests at some point but it doesn't need to be an essential feature in the game.

Funniest part is when GPS gamers still cant figure out the quest lol. but all they had to do was read and/or listen....

I'm not too sure what kind of indicators they'll have in the game for quests and objects but I'm hoping it's minimum and not dramatic/immersion breaking.

Ludullu

Vissox wrote: »

Those sites always exist, it's true, but that doesn't mean that the developers have to give up on an immersive experience before the game has even begun. It also takes a while for those types of addons and websites to get developed. In Vanilla Wow, thotbot is what people used and it had a lot of missing entrys because people still had to do those quests. it wasnt untill TBC that their database was actually flushed out and developed to the extent of the game.

Comparing mid-00's internet to nowadays' is kinda silly imo. The pace is waaaay too different.

Vissox wrote: »

I'm also uninterested in what the masses want. That's why we want this game isn't it? It's for the niche of people who actually like to play true RPGs, where your class can't do everything and you need to be one with that.

Imo there should be at least some limit to how niche the game should be. Simply so that it can survive monetarily.

I agree with Azherae's suggestion of simply having a variety approaches to questing, and that npcs would most likely simply point to your map and say "ah, it's there".

Imoxator

Yeah… just because add-ons and guides will tell you exactly where to go and what to do, doesn’t mean that developers should not make immersive questing. Give the questing an opportunity to have socializing occur, where players ask other players for help if they’re stuck.

Thats same logic could apply to raids/dungeons/world bosses too. Should the game provide exact details and instructions on how to beat each of those categories because add-ons and guides will tell people exactly how too?

Ludullu

Imoxator wrote: »

Give the questing an opportunity to have socializing occur, where players ask other players for help if they’re stuck.

Except they won't, which is my point

Imoxator wrote: »

Thats same logic could apply to raids/dungeons/world bosses too. Should the game provide exact details and instructions on how to beat each of those categories because add-ons and guides will tell people exactly how too?

Imo yes, because the gameplay itself should be super hard, so even if you've gotten info about the encounter (through npcs, or written lore, or whichever in-game source) - you'll still have to work super hard to overcome the boss.

GrappLr

NiKr wrote: »

Imoxator wrote: »

Give the questing an opportunity to have socializing occur, where players ask other players for help if they’re stuck.

Except they won't, which is my point

Imoxator wrote: »

Thats same logic could apply to raids/dungeons/world bosses too. Should the game provide exact details and instructions on how to beat each of those categories because add-ons and guides will tell people exactly how too?

Imo yes, because the gameplay itself should be super hard, so even if you've gotten info about the encounter (through npcs, or written lore, or whichever in-game source) - you'll still have to work super hard to overcome the boss.

Big disagreement here.

From what I'm seeing, you're suggesting the game should be brainless in leveling until we get to "raids" which is the real point of the game. And raids should be all about mechanics, and being awesome.

I think what AoC is trying to do (and what I hope it's trying to do) is make an immersive MMORPG where you actually do care about the world. Not necessary care about lore/chars, but feel like you're a part of something bigger.

And quest markers (and even worse, arrows) are there really for only one reason. It's the devs being afraid that if a player doesn't know immediately where to go for his next objective, that distraction will cause him to realize he's not having fun, and put aside the game.

If you notice, most games today constantly bombard you with very easy to follow directions, and space out dopamine hits accordingly. They throw in dailies, and almost anything else, to guarantee that you are always super busy with something. And it works. But it also doesn't make for a game that "I can't wait to play".

GrappLr

I agree with the other posters. Ideal questing is "Go to the hills in the north, and on the western side of the hill, there's a cave entrance. There you'll see Gorg, a goblin leader. Bring me his head". That's perfect. Enough information to go on, not a novel to read, but also no "ok, I see arrow, I follow arrow". And if you get lost, and the servers are not dead, you can ask someone "hey, anyone know where Gorg is? Can't find him". This is how organic friendships are made ingame.

GrappLr

As to the argument of "sites will make guides", yes. They will. And lots of people will use them. But guess what, that's 10x more engaging than "follow arrow until I see something to kill, then follow next arrow".

Also, those sites will not be up day 1. Also, those sites will not be used by everyone. And since there is no addons allowed, people will at least have to pay attention to what's happening ingame while following those guides.

As for the argument of people using addons even if it's against the rules, that argument can be made for anything. It's the minority who break rules and use 3rd party addons, unless the devs do a bad job of enforcing the rules.

Raven016

@Vissox I think you would enjoy the heavy fog in Valheim

Disable the map too and see if you can find the 2nd boss.

Ludullu

I'm not asking for the game to be dumb or to give us arrows. I'm saying that the npc that we got our quest from could simply point their finger to the place on the map. Considering the size of the map and the size of the finger - we'd get a rough estimate (a circle on the radar) of where we should go. Iirc Alpha1 already had this kind of system.

As for the boss stuff, as I said, all that info would be "hidden" in texts, npc interactions (ideally even related to npc relations values) and other in-world representations. So it would literally require you to go through all that stuff, or, obviously, go to a site and look it up.

In other words, I'm simply saying there can be a middle ground between "you have 0 info outside of the quest text" and "you have a pixel-precise arrow above your head". Making people alt tab to another window is in no way a good method of immersing them in the game, and people WILL alt tab if they have near-0 info on what they need to do.

GrappLr

NiKr wrote: »

I'm not asking for the game to be dumb or to give us arrows. I'm saying that the npc that we got our quest from could simply point their finger to the place on the map. Considering the size of the map and the size of the finger - we'd get a rough estimate (a circle on the radar) of where we should go. Iirc Alpha1 already had this kind of system.

As for the boss stuff, as I said, all that info would be "hidden" in texts, npc interactions (ideally even related to npc relations values) and other in-world representations. So it would literally require you to go through all that stuff, or, obviously, go to a site and look it up.

In other words, I'm simply saying there can be a middle ground between "you have 0 info outside of the quest text" and "you have a pixel-precise arrow above your head". Making people alt tab to another window is in no way a good method of immersing them in the game, and people WILL alt tab if they have near-0 info on what they need to do.

In general, I'm not against map marking. What I'm against is exclusively map marking. The occasional quest showing you spot on map is fun. Every single quest teaches the player to not read quests, just accept them, and look to map as default. Understand the difference I'm trying to point out?

Raven016

Imagine a quest where an NPC sends you somewhere, you arrive and another NPC says
"Who sent you?" ... "Ah, that NPC is a liar. You have to go the opposite direction".

GrappLr

Raven016 wrote: »

Imagine a quest where an NPC sends you somewhere, you arrive and another NPC says
"Who sent you?" ... "Ah, that NPC is a liar. You have to go the opposite direction".

There are tons of quests that make you travel to tons of places for stupid reasons. Remember "One small favor" from Runescape?

Ludullu

GrappLr wrote: »

In general, I'm not against map marking. What I'm against is exclusively map marking. The occasional quest showing you spot on map is fun. Every single quest teaches the player to not read quests, just accept them, and look to map as default. Understand the difference I'm trying to point out?

So we agree then, because I literally said the same thing

NiKr wrote: »

I agree with Azherae's suggestion of simply having a variety approaches to questing, and that npcs would most likely simply point to your map and say "ah, it's there".

Raven016

GrappLr wrote: »

Raven016 wrote: »

Imagine a quest where an NPC sends you somewhere, you arrive and another NPC says
"Who sent you?" ... "Ah, that NPC is a liar. You have to go the opposite direction".

There are tons of quests that make you travel to tons of places for stupid reasons. Remember "One small favor" from Runescape?

I never played that game but I know it is old. And you remembering the quest name says something

GrappLr

NiKr wrote: »

GrappLr wrote: »

In general, I'm not against map marking. What I'm against is exclusively map marking. The occasional quest showing you spot on map is fun. Every single quest teaches the player to not read quests, just accept them, and look to map as default. Understand the difference I'm trying to point out?

So we agree then, because I literally said the same thing

NiKr wrote: »

I agree with Azherae's suggestion of simply having a variety approaches to questing, and that npcs would most likely simply point to your map and say "ah, it's there".

I don't think we agree when you say "I love reading quests and immersing myself in the game's world, but those wow addons were made for a reason. And the reason is - the masses don't want to immerse themselves, they just want to "win"."

Just because everyone uses them, doesn't mean those addons make for a better game. Most gamers will optimize the fun out of a game if they are given to tools to do so.

Vissox

Raven016 wrote: »

@Vissox I think you would enjoy the heavy fog in Valheim
Disable the map too and see if you can find the 2nd boss.

I can tell this is some kind of sarcasm, but your defeating your own point, because you remembered what Valheim even is, so it was obviously a memorable experience.

EDIT: LOL

Raven016 wrote: »

I never played that game but I know it is old. And you remembering the quest name says something

How can you come to the same conclusion and miss the point entirely. That is some sweet irony.

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