I don't have a limited vision of how rewards can be attached to content.
We don't know how rewards will be attached to content. I bring up examples from other games to show that the manner in which rewards may be attached to content or not attached at all is diverse and depends on the specific game design
So what you're saying now is that you're fine without daily quests if the content is appropriately compensated for.
I don't think I'm saying that because I'm not really even factoring in "content".
First you would have to ask if I'm fine without quests in a game where the "content" is appropriately compensated for. "Content" is your fixation but that is really a different topic.
What I'm saying is that in a game with rewards for quests that take 30+ minutes, I also want rewards for quests that take 10-20 minutes. And it is fine with me if those 10-20 minute quests include a restriction that they can only be completed once per day. Similar to the Dailies in Wiz101 and the Dailies in Apoc.
I don't have a limited vision of how rewards can be attached to content.
We don't know how rewards will be attached to content. I bring up examples from other games to show that the manner in which rewards may be attached to content or not attached at all is diverse and depends on the specific game design
So what you're saying now is that you're fine without daily quests if the content is appropriately compensated for.
I don't think I'm saying that because I'm not really even factoring in "content".
First you would have to ask if I'm fine without quests in a game where the "content" is appropriately compensated for. "Content" is your fixation but that is really a different topic
What I'm saying is that in a game with rewards for quests that take 30+ minutes, I also want rewards for quests that take 10-20 minutes. And it is fine with me if those 10-20 minute quests include a restriction that they can only be completed once per day. Similar to the Dailies in Wiz101 and the Dailies in Apoc.
But why do they have to be daily quests? What's wrong with having normal narrative driven quests that can be done in 20 minutes?
Literally none of the arguments you have made have daily quests as the logical remedy.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited November 2019
I don't understand why you think that Dailies can't have narratives? The Dailies in Wiz101 have narratives.
Logical remedy for what?
I think that a normal "Kill x amount of boars." Quest has the same amount of narrative as a "Bring me 15 pieces of boar meat." Daily quest tbh...
But a town notice that says “Tavern seeking boar meat” with a limit on how much they’re accepting total from all players because they don’t need 1 million boar roasts, not in quest format, simply a standard part of the world you can engage with, is much different than “Everyone gets x gold for bringing the tavern 15 pieces of boar meat”
For consistent rewards from less intensive gameplay, content that rewards the first to the task is good, not arbitrarily limiting the amount a single player can give is good, not attaching any of these to a specific quest to be picked up is good and feels more organic.
Read the sign, it can jot down a in a journal, get an update on how much the tavern needs by speaking to the tavern owner, decide if you want to contribute and be paid premium for the boar meat or find another avenue of activity. Decide if you want to return often to make sure you get small amounts sold at a premium, or if you want to come back with a larger amount at risk of the tavern already having all its meat when you returns a long while later, but with larger payoff it is doesn’t.
Same can apply for a castle seige, or node seige prep. A final limit or minimum success rate as a collective.
There’s ways to create rewarding gameplay outside of instanced questing. It hardly needs to have a single-reward structure like a quest does. It doesn’t need an arbitrary quest marker to be interacted with multiple times to be engaged with the task multiple times.
I think that a normal "Kill x amount of boars." Quest has the same amount of narrative as a "Bring me 15 pieces of boar meat." Daily quest tbh...
But a town notice that says “Tavern seeking boar meat” with a limit on how much they’re accepting total from all players because they don’t need 1 million boar roasts, not in quest format, simply a standard part of the world you can engage with, is much different than “Everyone gets x gold for bringing the tavern 15 pieces of boar meat”
For consistent rewards from less intensive gameplay, content that rewards the first to the task is good, not arbitrarily limiting the amount a single player can give is good, not attaching any of these to a specific quest to be picked up is good and feels more organic.
Read the sign, it can jot down a in a journal, get an update on how much the tavern needs by speaking to the tavern owner, decide if you want to contribute and be paid premium for the boar meat or find another avenue of activity. Decide if you want to return often to make sure you get small amounts sold at a premium, or if you want to come back with a larger amount at risk of the tavern already having all its meat when you returns a long while later, but with larger payoff it is doesn’t.
Same can apply for a castle seige, or node seige prep. A final limit or minimum success rate as a collective.
There’s ways to create rewarding gameplay outside of instanced questing. It hardly needs to have a single-reward structure like a quest does. It doesn’t need an arbitrary quest marker to be interacted with multiple times to be engaged with the task multiple times.
That would mean that normal quests are limited by the amount of players that are able to do them, which is not the case.
That would mean that normal quests are limited by the amount of players that are able to do them, which is not the case.
Tbh I can’t even follow your thought process that would make you think a temporary open hunting writ is a “normal quest” like a story quest is.
But a town notice that says “Tavern seeking boar meat” with a limit on how much they’re accepting total from all players because they don’t need 1 million boar roasts, not in quest format, simply a standard part of the world you can engage with, is much different than “Everyone gets x gold for bringing the tavern 15 pieces of boar meat”/i]
That town notice would be in this case a normal quest...
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited November 2019
There could be many reasons why people would want to put a daily limit on how much boar can be hunted in a local region. Hunt the boar, but, don't completely depopulate the region or make them go extinct. In Ashes, it is possible for us to depopulate a region of a specific mob type if we kill enough of them. "It's more gonna be focused around like how the world is changing and how the changes in the world relate to your opportunities." --Steven Sharif
I think it's more likely that hunting boar would be a Daily and killing zombies or dire wolves would be a "normal" quest. In Wiz101, the Daily Quest GIver would have a quest that says something like, "In order to give honor to the Goddess of the Hunt this day, go to Rotweald Forest and kill 1 Boar. You have 24 hours to complete this quest." And that quest, similar to the Dailies in Apoc, would only be available one day per week, at most. (In Wiz101, there is counter for how much time is left for that quest to be available before changing to a different quest on the next calendar day, so depending on when you log in and grab the quest, it might say "You have 43 minutes to complete this quest.)
But a town notice that says “Tavern seeking boar meat” with a limit on how much they’re accepting total from all players because they don’t need 1 million boar roasts, not in quest format, simply a standard part of the world you can engage with, is much different than “Everyone gets x gold for bringing the tavern 15 pieces of boar meat”/i]
That town notice would be in this case a normal quest...
So to be clear, in your opinion any optional activity provided by the game must be a part of a quest.
That’s faulty logic.
My example is literally as basic as the game informing players that the tavern is paying extra for meat at the moment because they’re going to throw a feast for some celebration.
It’s not a quest and there’s absolutely no point into turning into a quest because the rewards are part of the content. Build rewards into the basic structure, stop thinking that rewards MUST be attached to questing.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited November 2019
Tavern paying players to hunt boar is a quest.
This topic isn't about any optional activity. This topic is about daily quests. Let's breakdown your example in bits.
When we log into the game on a day where we only have 20 minutes to play, how do we determine which quests that can be completed in 20 minutes include "extra pay"? How do we quickly pick out the 20 minutes or less quests from the 30+ minutes quests?
Tavern paying players to hunt boar is a quest.
This topic isn't about any optional activity. This topic is about daily quests. Let's breakdown your example in bits.
When we log into the game on a day where we only have 20 minutes to play, how do we determine which quests that can be completed in 20 minutes include "extra pay"? How do we quickly pick out the 20 minutes or less quests from the 30+ minutes quests?
You can tell which are shorter because presumably you are able to read and have at least moderate understanding of context of what you’ve read. At this point I’m starting to think that might be an optimistic assumption on my part.
A tavern briefly upping their buy price on a particular item is no more a quest than “discovering new places gives you exp” means you’ve been given a quest to discover places. It’s no more a quest than “I need elemental essence to craft something” is a quest to kill elementals.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited November 2019
You seem to be avoiding the question.
It's Tuesday and I have 20 minutes to play the Ashes of Creation MMORPG. In that time, I have to travel to a place that has quests, find a quest that can be completed in 20 minutes, travel to the quest location, complete the task and travel back to turn in the quest.
How do I quickly determine which quests are going to be 20 minutes or less? Even if the quests are listed on a bulletin board, I still have to take time to read through the posted quests and figure out which ones are suitable for the time I have and is something I have the interest or skills to do. In 20 minutes, I probably have about 5 minutes to select a quest. Looking at a bulletin board, I'm going to want to quickly determine short quests from long quests and then read through the short quest options to find one that is suitable for my playstyle.
So - how will the short quest options be easily distinguishable from the long quest options so that I don't waste time reading through a bunch of quests that are going to be too long for my game session time?
A tavern offering a reward for a task is a quest. Doesn't matter what the reward is. "I will pay you to bring me xx elemental essence so I can craft something" is a quest. Doesn't necessarily mean I have to go kill elementals if I already have enough elelmental essence to hand over.
How do I determine which tavern is increasing their buy price? There is no fast travel, so how do we factor in the travel time for players to get to this tavern?
You seem to be avoiding the question.
It's Tuesday and I have 20 minutes to play the Ashes of Creation MMORPG. In that time, I have to travel to a place that has quests, find a quest that that can be completed in 20 minutes, travel to the quest location, complete the task and travel back to turn in the quest.
How do I quickly determine which quests are going to be 20 minutes or less?
Even if the quests are listed on a bulletin board, I still have to take time to read through the posted quests and figure out which ones are suitable for the time I have and is something I have the interest or skills to do.
In 20 minutes, I probably have about 5 minutes to select a quest. Looking at a bulletin board, I'm going to want to quickly determine short quests from long quests and then read through the short quest options to find one that is suitable for my playstyle.
So - how will the short quest options be easily distinguishable from the long quest options so that I don't waste time reading through a bunch of quests that are going to be too long for my game session time?
A tavern offering a reward for a task is a quest. Doesn't matter what the reward is.
Selling items to NPC is not a quest, ffs. Do you think every merchant that buys your stuff is giving you quests to go collect it? No, obviously not. If they advertise they’re paying more for a while, it’s still not a quest.
I answered your question: read, use context clues, basic grade school methods of deduction. You’re the one who decided the town notice must be cluttered within dozens of extra notices out of literally nowhere. You’re asking the game to lead you around on a leash because apparently it takes you five full minutes to figure out something to do.
Go harvest some flowers for 20 minutes. Fight some mobs for exp. Go finish the next step in an actual quest. Craft something.
Muster up some motivation and pick something. There’s gonna be plenty for you to do, with rewards on their own, no quest required.
Edit: And to be clear, that is exactly what your suggestion boils down to. “I am incapable of thinking of goals for myself, so the game must tell me what to do”
You seem very set in thinking it’s necessary for games to treat its players like lost children needing direction. It isn’t necessary nor is it wanted, so I will be dropping this pointless discussion.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited November 2019
Selling items to an NPC is not a quest. I can sell items to any NPC, even ones that don't say "I need elemental essence to craft something." True.
But, if I only have 20 minutes to play an MMORPG on a Tuesday, I'm not going to log in just to farm Elementals and sell the essence to a generic NPC with no quest reward attached to it. I'm going to wait until Saturday and farm Elementals until my inventory is full or until I reach my goals for farming Elementals. If the devs are trying encourage me to log into the game every day, they're going to have to do something more than just provide NPCs where I can sell my loot for gold.
You did not answer my question. Reading and using context clues takes up time that I don't have. That works fine if I have an hour to play. If I only have 20 minutes to play, I'm not going to be wasting time trying to read through a bunch of quests to figure out which ones I can complete in 20 minutes and which ones are going to take longer than 20 minutes.
I am assuming that the town has more than one quest on the bulletin board. True. In general, how many quests will be on this bulletin board? How many will be short quests that are less than 20 minutes and how many, in general, will be 30+ minutes? If there is just one quest on the bulletin board each day and it is takes 10-20 minutes to complete, I will consider that to be a Daily Quest Bulletin Board. If there is one quest that takes 10-20 minutes to complete and one quest that takes 30+ minutes to complete, I will consider the one that takes 10-20 minutes to be a Daily Quest. So let's take your example in bits, back up and figure out how many short quests will be offered and how many long quests will be on the bulletin board.
You keep asserting that I am incapable of goals for myself. That simply is not the case. The goals I have for an MMORPG typically take an hour or more. Logging into an MMORPG for 20 minutes or less typically is not worth it for me. I will wait for a day where I have at least an hour to play. I typically put in more than 20 hours of gameplay per week. I'm happy to skip the days where I only have 20 minutes to play. If the devs want me to log in every day -even on days where I only have 20 minutes to play, they will have to provide something more enticing than just the general xp or loot I will get from farming for 20 minutes. Otherwise, I am happy to wait for the days when I have 45+ minutes to play.
I have never said that MMORGs need to have Dailies. If the devs want to entice me to log in every day, they are going to have to offer something more than farming mobs for 20 minutes. Otherwise, I am happy to wait and just play on the days that I have 45+ minutes to play.
Monday night, I logged into Wiz101 to check on some details of their Dailies for this discussion.
They have a brand new Life pet. As the Charles Darwin of Wiz101, I felt enticed to purchase a couple of them so I can train them from Baby to Adult, map the skills they will develop and have those posted on the Petnome Project website so players will know what skills these new pets have. These pets cost 6,500 crowns (embers) each. I only had 4,952 crowns, so I spent $25 to purchase 13,750 crowns and grabbed two pets.
It takes about 10+ minutes of playing mini-games to train a pet from Baby to Teen just using the pet snacks that came as rewards from regular questing. I can speed up the training some by spending 115 crowns on Snack Pack which has more powerful snacks than normal or speed up the training greatly by spending 2.5K crowns on a Mega-Snack.
Monday I had 20 minutes to play. I trained with regular snacks in order to test the time it normally takes to go from Baby to Teen. It takes 20+ minutes to go from Teen to Adult. It's not worth it to me to spend another 10 minutes training half way to Adult. I prefer to wait until I can go from Teen to Adult in one sitting. I did have time to do the Daily and the Daily Reward that alt is on is 10 crowns. Yay!! The way the Daily Reward distribution works, if I do Dailies every day for another 26 days, I will earn a total of 100 crowns...which is just about enough to pay for one Snack Pack. Doesn't matter if I skip real world days playing - the 26th time I do a Daily I will have earned 100 crowns. So, I don't feel obligated to play every day. I don't feel like I'm missing anything if I skip a day. But, I do feel enticed to do one quick and easy quest each day so I can get some crowns for free. It's like dropping pennies in a penny jar everyday for a couple weeks so I can buy a comic book.
Tuesday, I only had 20 minutes to play, so I did the same thing with my second pet. Wednesday I only had 20 minutes to play, so I just did the Daily. Today, I had a couple hours to play, so I trained my pet from Teen to Adult on both pets and also did the Daily.
Really has nothing to do with having goals for myself and everything to do with whether I feel working on those goals is worth logging in for less than 30 minutes. Typically, that answer is going to be no. If the devs want to entice me to log in each day -even on days when I only have 20 minutes to play- they will have to come up with something more enticing than just farming mobs for xp and loot. For Wiz101, they entice me with a handful of crowns - other days on the Daily Reward Calendar reward with gold, pvp tickets and house decorations - without crowns included, I would ignore the Dailies completely.
I like Dailies when they feel optional. The Dailies I don't like are the ones that reset to Day 1 rewards if you skip one day, even by a few minutes.
It's annoying when people do that, isn't it?
Now here is a question for you; in a game where travel time is specifically noted as being significant, and traveling just a few nodes over could well take 20 minutes or more, what makes you event think Ashes will even cater to people that only have 20 minutes to play?
Further, if you log out one night in a location where there are no quests, and your next play session is only minutes, that is your fault.
Ashes, after all, is not a game designed specifically for children (unlike somsome that are mentioned far too often). Because of that, if you log out one night too far away from quests to have time to find one and complete it in the time you have available, you should spend that short play session moving your character to a better location, and try to remember to log out in better places in the future.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Now here is a question for you; in a game where travel time is specifically noted as being significant, and traveling just a few nodes over could well take 20 minutes or more, what makes you event think Ashes will even cater to people that only have 20 minutes to play?
Because the purpose of Dailies is to entice players to log in every day.
Most of the MMORPG fanbase is over the age of 20 - they have jobs and/or families which precludes them from playing every day for hours. So if the devs want to encourage players to log in every day they have to have to include a mechanic that entices players to log in and accomplish something significant even on days were they have less than 30 minutes to play.
Further, if you log out one night in a location where there are no quests, and your next play session is only minutes, that is your fault.
There is no fault about it. I typically don't have play sessions that are only minutes. Most likely because I am, first and foremost an explorer. Remember, my Bartle score is Explorer 87%; Socializer 73% ; Achiever 47%; Killer 0%.
I'm fine being out in the boonies with no quests as long as there is plenty of map left for me to explore. But, I'm not going to login to just explore for 20 minutes. I'm not going to login to just farm 15 boars. I'm going to wait until the next day that I have 45+ minutes to play. Unless there is something compelling that is enticing me to play for only 20 minutes. If the devs don't provide that something compelling it's fine with me. I am happy to only log in when I have 45+ minutes. This topic is not - "Is it OK with you have Ashes doesn't have Dailies?" My answer to that is yes.
The topic question is "Do you want Dailies in Ashes". My original answer, before last Friday's livestream, was - it depends on how the Dailies are designed. If they are like the Dailies in Wiz101 or Apoc, where they take 10-20 minutes and they don't make it feel obligatory to do the Dailies every day and where we aren't penalized by resetting the rewards to Day 1 if we skip a day, I'm fine with Ashes having Dailies. If they include monster coins as a reward for 3 of the days on the Daily Reward Calendar and they include embers as a reward for another 3 days... that might entice me to login in most days if not every day. If they don't have quests that I feel I can find and complete and turn in for a reward within 20 minutes, I just won't play when I only have 20 minutes to play. And I will be perfectly happy with that.
The kind of Dailies I don't want Ashes to have is the kind where missing a day resets the Rewards Calendar back to Day 1 - such that I have to skip Day 13 (rewards 3 monster tokens) due to work and class obligations so, now I'm set back to Day 1 (rewards 1 house decoration)... and I have to wade through to Day 3 (rewards 1 monster token) before I start earning the reward I really want. But, we know, as of the last dev livestream that Ashes Dailies aren't designed with that kind of obligation. Which is great!
Ashes, after all, is not a game designed specifically for children (unlike somsome that are mentioned far too often). Because of that, if you log out one night too far away from quests to have time to find one and complete it in the time you have available, you should spend that short play session moving your character to a better location, and try to remember to log out in better places in the future.
Especially, during summers and other school breaks, children have time to spend hours each day playing an MMORPG if they want to. Adults tend not to have the luxury of spending 30+ minutes every day playing an MMORPG.
I'm not going to spend a 20 minute session moving a character to a different location. I just won't play until I have 45+ minutes - and, for me, 45 minutes to an hour is a very short session. I'd be more likely to wait til I have at least 2 hours to play. I typically put in about 30-40 hours per week when I'm exploring an MMORPG with the first few characters. Under 45 minutes, I typically consider pointless to play.
Because the purpose of Dailies is to entice players to log in every day.
If you pay attention to the majority of posters in this thread, this is EXACTLY what players don't want.
There is no actual line to most people between being enticed and being forced.
The notion of games wanting to entice players to log in every day has become very last generation.
Back in 2004 it wasn't an issue for entertainment companies to expect people to consume content when that company made that content available. Whether it was a daily or weekly show, or logging in to an MMO every day to do the daily quests.
These days though, with Netflix and it's ilk, people expect to be abke to consume content as and when they have the time - assuming the time theybhave is equal to or greater than the minimum time of one unit of that content (an episode, if you will).
MMO's should be following suit. If I want to watch a full season of my favourite show in one sitting, that is no one's business but my own. I am fully aware fhat means I will be out of that content until the next season, but again, my business.
The notion of adding in daily quests existing to entice players to log in every day has past it's day, there is only one thing to say in response to anyone suggesting it; ok boomer.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited November 2019
What players don't want is to feel obligated to log in every day, such that they feel like they've missed out on the reward structure if days are skipped. Hence, Steven's answer to the Dailies question. Devs are going to want to entice players to log in on weekdays, rather than just have them wait for the weekends. Clearly, adding in Daily quests is not past its day since Apoc has Dailies and Ashes will have Dailies as well.
Also: https://fortnite.gamepedia.com/Daily_Quests
There is a line between enticed and obligated - I've given an example several times in this thread.
And, yeah, I actually am a Boomer. I don't have kids, though, so I'm not the one typically complaining about not having time to play MMORPGs as much as I'd like. It's typically the players between the ages of 25 and 50 complaining about that. Gen X and Gen Y.
I think a good example for dailies that require you to do them would be WoW quests. At first (BC), they were harmless. A bit of gold extra here and there, but nowadays? Topraiders have to do most of the dailies to get the chance of titanforging their armour, and upgrading their necklace...
What players don't want is to feel obligated to log in every day, such that they feel like they've missed out on the reward structure if days are skipped. Hence, Steven's answer to the Dailies question.
If people are logging on to do a daily when they wouldn't otherwise log on, that is bad game design.
Content should be available when people want it, not the other way around. This is how content works now in every medium.
This is why the Ok boomer statement. You are arguing a point of view that is outdated, and refuse to accept that it is outdated. Ok boomer is the current appropriate response to that regardless of the age of the person arguing for the outdated concept.
Now, I'm the first to argue that not all things from 15 years ago need to be improved upon, but access to content is now something that should happen when the individual player wants it, not when the content creator wants it.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I think a good example for dailies that require you to do them would be WoW quests. At first (BC), they were harmless. A bit of gold extra here and there, but nowadays? Topraiders have to do most of the dailies to get the chance of titanforging their armour, and upgrading their necklace...
If people are logging on to do a daily when they wouldn't otherwise log on, that is bad game design.
That's your opinion. Sure. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's the opinion of most posters in this thread, most players in other MMO games, most video streaming services and most of their customers.
It is why the network and cable T.V. models are failing now, and why companies that have this as their traditional business model are having to diversify in to streaming services where people can watch what they want when they want, not when someone else says they can.
But hey, if you disagree that's up to you. You are very much in the minority here though. In fact, you may well be all by yourself in that opinion.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited November 2019
Yeah, but consensus in this thread does not equal objective truth.
We know I’m not all by myself because the OP agrees with me. And really Caeyrl and I agree about the mechanics proposed by the Ashes devs, he just doesn’t want to label that Daily.
Yeah, but consensus in this thread does not equal objective truth.
We know I’m not all by myself because the OP agrees with me. And really Caeyrl and I agree about the mechanics proposed by the Ashes devs, he just doesn’t want to label that Daily.
Adding a mechanic that forces people to log in each day or hey miss out on a piece of content is not good game design.
Not any more.
If you want to claim that having a game design like this is objectively better than not having a game design like this, then you need to back that up with a reason.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited November 2019
(Objectively better than what?)
I haven't suggested that Ashes should have a mechanic that forces people to log in each day or miss out on a piece of content. Wiz101 Dailies don't do that. Apoc Dailies don't do that. And Ashes Dailies won't force people to log in each day or miss out on a piece of content.
NWO Dailies are designed in such a way that makes players feel obligated to log in each day or reset the reward structure to Day 1 - missing a day literally penalizes players pursuing the Daily Reward schedule.
But, Dailies don't have to be designed like that.
(Last time I tried WoW Dailies was probably 8 years ago - all I remember about them is I was not a fan.)
Features that provide MMORPG players who have less than 30 minutes to play with treats to entice them to play and feel significantly rewarded without feeling obligated to play is good game design. It is perfectly fine to encourage players to participate in something they wouldn't normally do otherwise. It's not OK to make players feel obligated to do something they wouldn't normally do. Getting players to log in on weekdays even just for 20 minutes is better than having a ghosttown on weekdays because parents and adults with jobs don't have 30 minutes to play on weekdays. Ashes devs are going to implement quests for such players - and those quests are going to have rewards that are more than what can be achieved by just farming mobs without a quest. Those rewards don't necessarily have to be on par with the rewards gained from regular quests - it can be fine to have alternative rewards for the Daily Rewards structure, like monster coins, cosmetics, embers, etc.
We'll have to what the devs actually implement. They could do a great job or they could muck it up.
But, if it's similar to the Apoc Dailies, the MMORPG Dailies should be fine.
Any system in which players want to play a game (and thus pay for said game), but feel no obligation from the game itself to log in on any specific day is objectively better than any system in which players feel like the game is requiring them to log in on any specific day (let alone every day), or fear missing out on content.
I've said it many times here, if I want to take my significant other out for dinner one night, it is objectively bad game design if I feel like I would then miss out on something in game that I am unable to simply do the next day.
That is what daily quests are - if you don't do them today, then they are gone.
Some games have used a system where you do an activity each day for x number of days, but this usuallyhas the same pitfall - if you miss a day, you are a day behind. This type of thing can work ok if the system is designed with redundant days in it though (do this task once per day, 5 times over the course of one week). This is the least worst way I have seen daily quests being added to a game in the last 8 years or so, but it isn't a fit for Ashes.
A far better design is to provide players with long term goals, and don't put artificial blocks in their way. This way, players will want to log in when they can, but need not feel punished or left behind if they have a day off.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited November 2019
Um. Games should not make a player feel obligated to play. Games should make people feel a desire to play.
Traditionally RPGs take a considerable amount of time to make significant progress - hence why initially quests in MMORPGs were designed for hardcore time players. But at that time, quite a lot of their playerbase were under under 22 - Steven being a prime example. 22+ years later, the majority of the MMORPG fanbase is over the age of 22 with only casual time on weekdays - hence, devs are going to need to include quests for casual time players.
The way Wiz101 Daily quests are designed, you can take your significant other out for dinner and still complete the Daily. And, even if you have to miss a Daily, the reward is still waiting for you the next day.
If you were on the Day 4 reward Monday night when you went out for dinner, you will still be on the Day 4 reward when you log in on Thursday. You don't miss out on anything in the game just because you went out to dinner. There is no feeling of obligation to log in, rather, you feel confidence that any day you log in, there is a mission you can pick up and complete quickly and easily once per day -within 10-20 minutes) and there will be some reward for it - a few crowns (embers), a housing decoration, some PvP Arena tickets, etc.
"If you miss out on them today, they are gone" is not how Dailies work in Wiz101. That's what I keep telling you.
There is no such thing as missing a day and being behind with Wiz101 Dailies. Also, Wiz101 Dailies include long term goals. Like I said, if I complete 2 cycles of the Daily Reward Calendar (15 Days per cycle), I will have 100 crowns (embers). I can then use those embers to purchase stuff - in this case it's just about enough for one Snack Pack...which is great because the primary thing I'm doing in that game is training pets - and, though 100 crowns is less than pennies on the dollar when I spent 13K crowns on pets, it's still better than nothing... it's a bonus.
No Man's Sky introduced Dailies earlier this year. The rewards in that game were cosmetic tokens/coins. We get xx amount for completing the Daily and then we can use those to purchase things similar to what's available in Apoc - emotes, cosmetic gear, and house decorations (coming to Apoc eventually along with pet and mount skins), etc. In that game, the quest is given has a hail from an alien, we didn't have to travel to a quest giver - so that could be construed as "spontaneous, I suppose. It's a mission we can complete in 10-20 minutes once per day and we receive cosmetics currency as a reward. You don't miss out on anything by skipping a day. And the rewards are not competitive with other players. There are no artificial blocks. And there is no feeling of punishment for skipping a day or several days. As I've stated repeatedly.
NWO Dailies design does make people feel punished for missing a day. I think that's true for WoW as well. But, that is not inherent in Daily Quest design. Dailies can be, and have been, designed and implemented without those punitive elements. And the Ashes devs are not planning to include that in theirs.
Which is precisely why I keep saying, it all depends on how the Daily mechanic is designed. Is it designed with punitive measure for skipping a day or not? Are the rewards must-haves or are they just minor bonuses - actual gear and abilities or just cosmetics and emotes?
Just because all the games with Dailies that you have played have had crappy designs for the Daily mechanic doesn't mean that all games with Dailies have a crappy design for their Daily mechanic.
Um. Games should not make a player feel obligated to play. Games should make people feel a desire to play.
Agreed.
And any mechanic that sees a piece of content available for just one day, or an aspect of progress that can't be caught up the next day, does exactly this.
In order to avoid this, any and all content needs to be able to be done the following day at absolutely no detriment to the player - real or perceived.
If there is a piece of content available for me to do today, but that I can also do tomorrow (as is necessary as per the above) then it by definition is not a daily task.
Comments
First you would have to ask if I'm fine without quests in a game where the "content" is appropriately compensated for. "Content" is your fixation but that is really a different topic.
What I'm saying is that in a game with rewards for quests that take 30+ minutes, I also want rewards for quests that take 10-20 minutes. And it is fine with me if those 10-20 minute quests include a restriction that they can only be completed once per day. Similar to the Dailies in Wiz101 and the Dailies in Apoc.
Literally none of the arguments you have made have daily quests as the logical remedy.
Logical remedy for what?
But a town notice that says “Tavern seeking boar meat” with a limit on how much they’re accepting total from all players because they don’t need 1 million boar roasts, not in quest format, simply a standard part of the world you can engage with, is much different than “Everyone gets x gold for bringing the tavern 15 pieces of boar meat”
For consistent rewards from less intensive gameplay, content that rewards the first to the task is good, not arbitrarily limiting the amount a single player can give is good, not attaching any of these to a specific quest to be picked up is good and feels more organic.
Read the sign, it can jot down a in a journal, get an update on how much the tavern needs by speaking to the tavern owner, decide if you want to contribute and be paid premium for the boar meat or find another avenue of activity. Decide if you want to return often to make sure you get small amounts sold at a premium, or if you want to come back with a larger amount at risk of the tavern already having all its meat when you returns a long while later, but with larger payoff it is doesn’t.
Same can apply for a castle seige, or node seige prep. A final limit or minimum success rate as a collective.
There’s ways to create rewarding gameplay outside of instanced questing. It hardly needs to have a single-reward structure like a quest does. It doesn’t need an arbitrary quest marker to be interacted with multiple times to be engaged with the task multiple times.
That would mean that normal quests are limited by the amount of players that are able to do them, which is not the case.
Tbh I can’t even follow your thought process that would make you think a temporary open hunting writ is a “normal quest” like a story quest is.
But a town notice that says “Tavern seeking boar meat” with a limit on how much they’re accepting total from all players because they don’t need 1 million boar roasts, not in quest format, simply a standard part of the world you can engage with, is much different than “Everyone gets x gold for bringing the tavern 15 pieces of boar meat”/i]
That town notice would be in this case a normal quest...
"It's more gonna be focused around like how the world is changing and how the changes in the world relate to your opportunities." --Steven Sharif
I think it's more likely that hunting boar would be a Daily and killing zombies or dire wolves would be a "normal" quest. In Wiz101, the Daily Quest GIver would have a quest that says something like, "In order to give honor to the Goddess of the Hunt this day, go to Rotweald Forest and kill 1 Boar. You have 24 hours to complete this quest." And that quest, similar to the Dailies in Apoc, would only be available one day per week, at most. (In Wiz101, there is counter for how much time is left for that quest to be available before changing to a different quest on the next calendar day, so depending on when you log in and grab the quest, it might say "You have 43 minutes to complete this quest.)
So to be clear, in your opinion any optional activity provided by the game must be a part of a quest.
That’s faulty logic.
My example is literally as basic as the game informing players that the tavern is paying extra for meat at the moment because they’re going to throw a feast for some celebration.
It’s not a quest and there’s absolutely no point into turning into a quest because the rewards are part of the content. Build rewards into the basic structure, stop thinking that rewards MUST be attached to questing.
This topic isn't about any optional activity. This topic is about daily quests. Let's breakdown your example in bits.
When we log into the game on a day where we only have 20 minutes to play, how do we determine which quests that can be completed in 20 minutes include "extra pay"? How do we quickly pick out the 20 minutes or less quests from the 30+ minutes quests?
You can tell which are shorter because presumably you are able to read and have at least moderate understanding of context of what you’ve read. At this point I’m starting to think that might be an optimistic assumption on my part.
A tavern briefly upping their buy price on a particular item is no more a quest than “discovering new places gives you exp” means you’ve been given a quest to discover places. It’s no more a quest than “I need elemental essence to craft something” is a quest to kill elementals.
It's Tuesday and I have 20 minutes to play the Ashes of Creation MMORPG. In that time, I have to travel to a place that has quests, find a quest that can be completed in 20 minutes, travel to the quest location, complete the task and travel back to turn in the quest.
How do I quickly determine which quests are going to be 20 minutes or less? Even if the quests are listed on a bulletin board, I still have to take time to read through the posted quests and figure out which ones are suitable for the time I have and is something I have the interest or skills to do. In 20 minutes, I probably have about 5 minutes to select a quest. Looking at a bulletin board, I'm going to want to quickly determine short quests from long quests and then read through the short quest options to find one that is suitable for my playstyle.
So - how will the short quest options be easily distinguishable from the long quest options so that I don't waste time reading through a bunch of quests that are going to be too long for my game session time?
A tavern offering a reward for a task is a quest. Doesn't matter what the reward is. "I will pay you to bring me xx elemental essence so I can craft something" is a quest. Doesn't necessarily mean I have to go kill elementals if I already have enough elelmental essence to hand over.
How do I determine which tavern is increasing their buy price? There is no fast travel, so how do we factor in the travel time for players to get to this tavern?
Selling items to NPC is not a quest, ffs. Do you think every merchant that buys your stuff is giving you quests to go collect it? No, obviously not. If they advertise they’re paying more for a while, it’s still not a quest.
I answered your question: read, use context clues, basic grade school methods of deduction. You’re the one who decided the town notice must be cluttered within dozens of extra notices out of literally nowhere. You’re asking the game to lead you around on a leash because apparently it takes you five full minutes to figure out something to do.
Go harvest some flowers for 20 minutes. Fight some mobs for exp. Go finish the next step in an actual quest. Craft something.
Muster up some motivation and pick something. There’s gonna be plenty for you to do, with rewards on their own, no quest required.
Edit: And to be clear, that is exactly what your suggestion boils down to. “I am incapable of thinking of goals for myself, so the game must tell me what to do”
You seem very set in thinking it’s necessary for games to treat its players like lost children needing direction. It isn’t necessary nor is it wanted, so I will be dropping this pointless discussion.
But, if I only have 20 minutes to play an MMORPG on a Tuesday, I'm not going to log in just to farm Elementals and sell the essence to a generic NPC with no quest reward attached to it. I'm going to wait until Saturday and farm Elementals until my inventory is full or until I reach my goals for farming Elementals. If the devs are trying encourage me to log into the game every day, they're going to have to do something more than just provide NPCs where I can sell my loot for gold.
You did not answer my question. Reading and using context clues takes up time that I don't have. That works fine if I have an hour to play. If I only have 20 minutes to play, I'm not going to be wasting time trying to read through a bunch of quests to figure out which ones I can complete in 20 minutes and which ones are going to take longer than 20 minutes.
I am assuming that the town has more than one quest on the bulletin board. True. In general, how many quests will be on this bulletin board? How many will be short quests that are less than 20 minutes and how many, in general, will be 30+ minutes? If there is just one quest on the bulletin board each day and it is takes 10-20 minutes to complete, I will consider that to be a Daily Quest Bulletin Board. If there is one quest that takes 10-20 minutes to complete and one quest that takes 30+ minutes to complete, I will consider the one that takes 10-20 minutes to be a Daily Quest. So let's take your example in bits, back up and figure out how many short quests will be offered and how many long quests will be on the bulletin board.
You keep asserting that I am incapable of goals for myself. That simply is not the case. The goals I have for an MMORPG typically take an hour or more. Logging into an MMORPG for 20 minutes or less typically is not worth it for me. I will wait for a day where I have at least an hour to play. I typically put in more than 20 hours of gameplay per week. I'm happy to skip the days where I only have 20 minutes to play. If the devs want me to log in every day -even on days where I only have 20 minutes to play, they will have to provide something more enticing than just the general xp or loot I will get from farming for 20 minutes. Otherwise, I am happy to wait for the days when I have 45+ minutes to play.
I have never said that MMORGs need to have Dailies. If the devs want to entice me to log in every day, they are going to have to offer something more than farming mobs for 20 minutes. Otherwise, I am happy to wait and just play on the days that I have 45+ minutes to play.
Monday night, I logged into Wiz101 to check on some details of their Dailies for this discussion.
They have a brand new Life pet. As the Charles Darwin of Wiz101, I felt enticed to purchase a couple of them so I can train them from Baby to Adult, map the skills they will develop and have those posted on the Petnome Project website so players will know what skills these new pets have. These pets cost 6,500 crowns (embers) each. I only had 4,952 crowns, so I spent $25 to purchase 13,750 crowns and grabbed two pets.
It takes about 10+ minutes of playing mini-games to train a pet from Baby to Teen just using the pet snacks that came as rewards from regular questing. I can speed up the training some by spending 115 crowns on Snack Pack which has more powerful snacks than normal or speed up the training greatly by spending 2.5K crowns on a Mega-Snack.
Monday I had 20 minutes to play. I trained with regular snacks in order to test the time it normally takes to go from Baby to Teen. It takes 20+ minutes to go from Teen to Adult. It's not worth it to me to spend another 10 minutes training half way to Adult. I prefer to wait until I can go from Teen to Adult in one sitting. I did have time to do the Daily and the Daily Reward that alt is on is 10 crowns. Yay!! The way the Daily Reward distribution works, if I do Dailies every day for another 26 days, I will earn a total of 100 crowns...which is just about enough to pay for one Snack Pack. Doesn't matter if I skip real world days playing - the 26th time I do a Daily I will have earned 100 crowns. So, I don't feel obligated to play every day. I don't feel like I'm missing anything if I skip a day. But, I do feel enticed to do one quick and easy quest each day so I can get some crowns for free. It's like dropping pennies in a penny jar everyday for a couple weeks so I can buy a comic book.
Tuesday, I only had 20 minutes to play, so I did the same thing with my second pet. Wednesday I only had 20 minutes to play, so I just did the Daily. Today, I had a couple hours to play, so I trained my pet from Teen to Adult on both pets and also did the Daily.
Really has nothing to do with having goals for myself and everything to do with whether I feel working on those goals is worth logging in for less than 30 minutes. Typically, that answer is going to be no. If the devs want to entice me to log in each day -even on days when I only have 20 minutes to play- they will have to come up with something more enticing than just farming mobs for xp and loot. For Wiz101, they entice me with a handful of crowns - other days on the Daily Reward Calendar reward with gold, pvp tickets and house decorations - without crowns included, I would ignore the Dailies completely.
I like Dailies when they feel optional. The Dailies I don't like are the ones that reset to Day 1 rewards if you skip one day, even by a few minutes.
Because the purpose of Dailies is to entice players to log in every day.
Most of the MMORPG fanbase is over the age of 20 - they have jobs and/or families which precludes them from playing every day for hours. So if the devs want to encourage players to log in every day they have to have to include a mechanic that entices players to log in and accomplish something significant even on days were they have less than 30 minutes to play.
There is no fault about it. I typically don't have play sessions that are only minutes. Most likely because I am, first and foremost an explorer. Remember, my Bartle score is Explorer 87%; Socializer 73% ; Achiever 47%; Killer 0%.
I'm fine being out in the boonies with no quests as long as there is plenty of map left for me to explore. But, I'm not going to login to just explore for 20 minutes. I'm not going to login to just farm 15 boars. I'm going to wait until the next day that I have 45+ minutes to play. Unless there is something compelling that is enticing me to play for only 20 minutes. If the devs don't provide that something compelling it's fine with me. I am happy to only log in when I have 45+ minutes. This topic is not - "Is it OK with you have Ashes doesn't have Dailies?" My answer to that is yes.
The topic question is "Do you want Dailies in Ashes". My original answer, before last Friday's livestream, was - it depends on how the Dailies are designed. If they are like the Dailies in Wiz101 or Apoc, where they take 10-20 minutes and they don't make it feel obligatory to do the Dailies every day and where we aren't penalized by resetting the rewards to Day 1 if we skip a day, I'm fine with Ashes having Dailies. If they include monster coins as a reward for 3 of the days on the Daily Reward Calendar and they include embers as a reward for another 3 days... that might entice me to login in most days if not every day. If they don't have quests that I feel I can find and complete and turn in for a reward within 20 minutes, I just won't play when I only have 20 minutes to play. And I will be perfectly happy with that.
The kind of Dailies I don't want Ashes to have is the kind where missing a day resets the Rewards Calendar back to Day 1 - such that I have to skip Day 13 (rewards 3 monster tokens) due to work and class obligations so, now I'm set back to Day 1 (rewards 1 house decoration)... and I have to wade through to Day 3 (rewards 1 monster token) before I start earning the reward I really want. But, we know, as of the last dev livestream that Ashes Dailies aren't designed with that kind of obligation. Which is great!
Especially, during summers and other school breaks, children have time to spend hours each day playing an MMORPG if they want to. Adults tend not to have the luxury of spending 30+ minutes every day playing an MMORPG.
I'm not going to spend a 20 minute session moving a character to a different location. I just won't play until I have 45+ minutes - and, for me, 45 minutes to an hour is a very short session. I'd be more likely to wait til I have at least 2 hours to play. I typically put in about 30-40 hours per week when I'm exploring an MMORPG with the first few characters. Under 45 minutes, I typically consider pointless to play.
There is no actual line to most people between being enticed and being forced.
The notion of games wanting to entice players to log in every day has become very last generation.
Back in 2004 it wasn't an issue for entertainment companies to expect people to consume content when that company made that content available. Whether it was a daily or weekly show, or logging in to an MMO every day to do the daily quests.
These days though, with Netflix and it's ilk, people expect to be abke to consume content as and when they have the time - assuming the time theybhave is equal to or greater than the minimum time of one unit of that content (an episode, if you will).
MMO's should be following suit. If I want to watch a full season of my favourite show in one sitting, that is no one's business but my own. I am fully aware fhat means I will be out of that content until the next season, but again, my business.
The notion of adding in daily quests existing to entice players to log in every day has past it's day, there is only one thing to say in response to anyone suggesting it; ok boomer.
Also: https://fortnite.gamepedia.com/Daily_Quests
There is a line between enticed and obligated - I've given an example several times in this thread.
And, yeah, I actually am a Boomer. I don't have kids, though, so I'm not the one typically complaining about not having time to play MMORPGs as much as I'd like. It's typically the players between the ages of 25 and 50 complaining about that. Gen X and Gen Y.
Content should be available when people want it, not the other way around. This is how content works now in every medium.
This is why the Ok boomer statement. You are arguing a point of view that is outdated, and refuse to accept that it is outdated. Ok boomer is the current appropriate response to that regardless of the age of the person arguing for the outdated concept.
Now, I'm the first to argue that not all things from 15 years ago need to be improved upon, but access to content is now something that should happen when the individual player wants it, not when the content creator wants it.
It is why the network and cable T.V. models are failing now, and why companies that have this as their traditional business model are having to diversify in to streaming services where people can watch what they want when they want, not when someone else says they can.
But hey, if you disagree that's up to you. You are very much in the minority here though. In fact, you may well be all by yourself in that opinion.
We know I’m not all by myself because the OP agrees with me. And really Caeyrl and I agree about the mechanics proposed by the Ashes devs, he just doesn’t want to label that Daily.
Not any more.
If you want to claim that having a game design like this is objectively better than not having a game design like this, then you need to back that up with a reason.
I haven't suggested that Ashes should have a mechanic that forces people to log in each day or miss out on a piece of content. Wiz101 Dailies don't do that. Apoc Dailies don't do that. And Ashes Dailies won't force people to log in each day or miss out on a piece of content.
NWO Dailies are designed in such a way that makes players feel obligated to log in each day or reset the reward structure to Day 1 - missing a day literally penalizes players pursuing the Daily Reward schedule.
But, Dailies don't have to be designed like that.
(Last time I tried WoW Dailies was probably 8 years ago - all I remember about them is I was not a fan.)
Features that provide MMORPG players who have less than 30 minutes to play with treats to entice them to play and feel significantly rewarded without feeling obligated to play is good game design. It is perfectly fine to encourage players to participate in something they wouldn't normally do otherwise. It's not OK to make players feel obligated to do something they wouldn't normally do. Getting players to log in on weekdays even just for 20 minutes is better than having a ghosttown on weekdays because parents and adults with jobs don't have 30 minutes to play on weekdays. Ashes devs are going to implement quests for such players - and those quests are going to have rewards that are more than what can be achieved by just farming mobs without a quest. Those rewards don't necessarily have to be on par with the rewards gained from regular quests - it can be fine to have alternative rewards for the Daily Rewards structure, like monster coins, cosmetics, embers, etc.
We'll have to what the devs actually implement. They could do a great job or they could muck it up.
But, if it's similar to the Apoc Dailies, the MMORPG Dailies should be fine.
I've said it many times here, if I want to take my significant other out for dinner one night, it is objectively bad game design if I feel like I would then miss out on something in game that I am unable to simply do the next day.
That is what daily quests are - if you don't do them today, then they are gone.
Some games have used a system where you do an activity each day for x number of days, but this usuallyhas the same pitfall - if you miss a day, you are a day behind. This type of thing can work ok if the system is designed with redundant days in it though (do this task once per day, 5 times over the course of one week). This is the least worst way I have seen daily quests being added to a game in the last 8 years or so, but it isn't a fit for Ashes.
A far better design is to provide players with long term goals, and don't put artificial blocks in their way. This way, players will want to log in when they can, but need not feel punished or left behind if they have a day off.
Traditionally RPGs take a considerable amount of time to make significant progress - hence why initially quests in MMORPGs were designed for hardcore time players. But at that time, quite a lot of their playerbase were under under 22 - Steven being a prime example. 22+ years later, the majority of the MMORPG fanbase is over the age of 22 with only casual time on weekdays - hence, devs are going to need to include quests for casual time players.
The way Wiz101 Daily quests are designed, you can take your significant other out for dinner and still complete the Daily. And, even if you have to miss a Daily, the reward is still waiting for you the next day.
If you were on the Day 4 reward Monday night when you went out for dinner, you will still be on the Day 4 reward when you log in on Thursday. You don't miss out on anything in the game just because you went out to dinner. There is no feeling of obligation to log in, rather, you feel confidence that any day you log in, there is a mission you can pick up and complete quickly and easily once per day -within 10-20 minutes) and there will be some reward for it - a few crowns (embers), a housing decoration, some PvP Arena tickets, etc.
"If you miss out on them today, they are gone" is not how Dailies work in Wiz101. That's what I keep telling you.
There is no such thing as missing a day and being behind with Wiz101 Dailies. Also, Wiz101 Dailies include long term goals. Like I said, if I complete 2 cycles of the Daily Reward Calendar (15 Days per cycle), I will have 100 crowns (embers). I can then use those embers to purchase stuff - in this case it's just about enough for one Snack Pack...which is great because the primary thing I'm doing in that game is training pets - and, though 100 crowns is less than pennies on the dollar when I spent 13K crowns on pets, it's still better than nothing... it's a bonus.
No Man's Sky introduced Dailies earlier this year. The rewards in that game were cosmetic tokens/coins. We get xx amount for completing the Daily and then we can use those to purchase things similar to what's available in Apoc - emotes, cosmetic gear, and house decorations (coming to Apoc eventually along with pet and mount skins), etc. In that game, the quest is given has a hail from an alien, we didn't have to travel to a quest giver - so that could be construed as "spontaneous, I suppose. It's a mission we can complete in 10-20 minutes once per day and we receive cosmetics currency as a reward. You don't miss out on anything by skipping a day. And the rewards are not competitive with other players. There are no artificial blocks. And there is no feeling of punishment for skipping a day or several days. As I've stated repeatedly.
NWO Dailies design does make people feel punished for missing a day. I think that's true for WoW as well. But, that is not inherent in Daily Quest design. Dailies can be, and have been, designed and implemented without those punitive elements. And the Ashes devs are not planning to include that in theirs.
Which is precisely why I keep saying, it all depends on how the Daily mechanic is designed. Is it designed with punitive measure for skipping a day or not? Are the rewards must-haves or are they just minor bonuses - actual gear and abilities or just cosmetics and emotes?
Just because all the games with Dailies that you have played have had crappy designs for the Daily mechanic doesn't mean that all games with Dailies have a crappy design for their Daily mechanic.
And any mechanic that sees a piece of content available for just one day, or an aspect of progress that can't be caught up the next day, does exactly this.
In order to avoid this, any and all content needs to be able to be done the following day at absolutely no detriment to the player - real or perceived.
If there is a piece of content available for me to do today, but that I can also do tomorrow (as is necessary as per the above) then it by definition is not a daily task.