Questing vs Grinding

Would you rather have the bulk of your Exp gained for leveling your character be from quests you complete or just from straight grinding?

I believe all types of content should contribute towards the progression of the Node you play in but at the same time it can get very repetitive simply grinding mobs. Currently there seems to be a big disparity between the Exp gain between just blitz grinding mobs over doing quests. Since we have the Hunting and Gathering quest boards to me I feel like they should carry more weight. The idea behind quests are meant at least "lore" wise to be done to help out your Node/Town. So you should want to actively gather a bunch of quests to contribute to your town.

I'd still want to keep the same pace to lvl 50 as it is now. I wouldn't want questing to be so strong that it makes it too easy to speed run to max level.

So regardless of whether you like to group up and grind or group up and quest, I just want it to be a viable option so you don't feel like you aren't getting anywhere with the amount of time you have to play.

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sciffer2014

My opinion : Questing should be created to help you travel around the world in an organic way. The amount of exp you get from it, is not that meaningful to me as long as the reward itself is interesting when everything is combine (exp, loot, cash, material, etc.). Reward from said quest - whether it is xp or loot - should be enjoy like receiving a boost drop from some other player, meaning it needs to feel helpful but also you don't want to have quest system carry the player through the game.

Noaani

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Dev generated content is has to be consistently added.

That is literally why we pay a subscription.

We shouldn't be asking developers to stop adding content, we should be demanding they add new content at least every month.

Noaani

Ludullu wrote: »

My main issue with quest-based leveling (unless it's just a "kill these mobs" quests) is that they'd remove a ton of people from the open world.

I don't understand why this would be the case.

There are two ways to remove players from the open world in Ashes.

The first is that they enter in to an instance - quests don't need instances.

The second is that they log out of the game - offering players the choice of quests or a grind to level up won't see people logging out.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

I don't understand why this would be the case.

I know my definition of "people in the open world" here is real narrow, but, to me, a person that just runs from an npc to an npc is not participating in the open world. Yes, they exist in it, but they're not really a part of it. Even exploration quests are kinda similar, unless the exploration takes that person to the pvp areas.

Like, there's a part of the Slivers of the Past quest where you just need to come to an npc, talk to him, run to 4 parts of a dungeon and the quest will give you 17k xp (iirc). To me, that is not participation in the open world.

I know that this is not a factual definition of what an "open world mmo" is, but if there's no inter-player interaction in players' actions - that's not an open world mmo imo.

Vhaeyne

Noaani wrote: »

That is literally why we pay a subscription.

We shouldn't be asking developers to stop adding content, we should be demanding they add new content at least every month.

Content is not limited to quests alone.

In my opinion, quests are the least engaging form of content that MMORPGs have to offer.

Percimes

Ideally, everything should be a quest, even grinding...

By that I mean that there should always be an in world / lore reason for doing things. I blame my table top rpg background for this, but if not for the storytelling part, a rpg is a soulless numbers going up thing. It's meta gaming, looking at it from the outside only, no need for immersion, no need for dressing the world. Not saying it can't be fun that way, but why bother with lore if it's irrelevant?

Now, I'm not really concerned with what is the most efficient way to level, so the % of XPs for quest vs pure grinding is not high on my list. So if there are reasons to go farm any types of mobs beyond phat l00t I'm ok. Node advancements; pest control tied to world events; personal rewards in the form of bounty (much like Crushbone belts in EQ*) whether XPs, faction perks, temporary buffs, or whatever; etc. The NPC interested in you going maniac on one type of enemies don't need to be easy to find, but it should be there, somewhere on Verra. And for those who want to participate in the great race, they'll do the most efficient thing anyway, boring or not (which is grinding for some and questing for others, so...)

* Crushbone Belts: For those unfamiliar with this, in EverQuest, the Crushbone Orcs (low level mobs) could drop a particular belt. There was a NPC in a town a few zones away that would give an XPs reward for those belts. At low level it was such a good reward that players on an alt would often buy as much of those belts they could at a really good price. A great deal for the poor low level and for the rich twink.

Slayven

I personally enjoy the grind and think they have hit it on the nose with events.
Making them worth while and not making them an afk experience.
May be a solo grind spot or two when friends not around to help or you can’t find a cleric as a tank. But I would not cater to soloist.
More and better events that spawn are in my opinion easy to make and do the job.
Questing is a slog and a solo experience and can’t even really be shared with friends I hope they don’t make this to question heavy.

Noaani

Ludullu wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

I don't understand why this would be the case.

I know my definition of "people in the open world" here is real narrow, but, to me, a person that just runs from an npc to an npc is not participating in the open world.

You seem to have a low opinion of what questing can be

I don't think that is a surprise to either of us, however.

Like you, I can note some examples of poor quest design, but good quest design also exists.

Noaani

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

That is literally why we pay a subscription.

We shouldn't be asking developers to stop adding content, we should be demanding they add new content at least every month.

Content is not limited to quests alone.

In my opinion, quests are the least engaging form of content that MMORPGs have to offer.

To me, it is event content that is the least engaging.

There are many, many people out there to whom quests are the most engaging form of content. This isn't a PvE vs PvP thing either, it is more a split between those that enjoy and appreciate the games lore and story, and those that don't.

What I will say though, is thst badly designed quests are the worst content of any genre I have experienced. If a quest designer is using a quest to dump a whole pile of text on players, or if a quest is a simple "kill x" quest, or talking to two NPC's in the same town (even worse if they are right next to each other), then yeah, it's shit.

On the other hand, even a "kill x" quest can be fun if the developers give players a few choices to make. Giving players the choice of a few different types of mobs is good, making harder mobs could more than easier mobs is good, and allowing players to over-complete quests to gain additional experience if they wish is also good.

The reason this works, to me, is because simple "kill x" quests don't ask players to think at all. The above options all add considerations, meaning you have a reason to think (though those thst don't want to think for themselves are still able to mindlessly run the quest, more power to them).

Almost every time people say they hate *x* content types, the examples they give (not that you have given any) are of the worst example of x. The worst example of anything is usually pretty bad, but the best example of basically anything is usually pretty good, even to people that don't usually like it.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

You seem to have a low opinion of what questing can be

Mob fights, npc dialogue, puzzles, pure lore text.

What else is there? Give me at least one example. The only one of those above that doesn't remove players from the "this is an open world with other players" pool is the mob fight one, which I pointed out in the original comment.

What other questing type would not remove people from the open world, in the context of what I mean by that phrase?

Vhaeyne

@Noaani

I am hearing you say "Good quests" take more thought and design time.

It's like... what a waste.

The content is limited to leveling and making alts.

That time could have been spent not having quests at all and having more engaging mobs and open world dungeons with resources to fight over.

A good open world dungeon and engaging mobs will provide content for a games lifetime.

Noaani

Ludullu wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

You seem to have a low opinion of what questing can be

Mob fights, npc dialogue, puzzles, pure lore text.

What else is there? Give me at least one example.

Killing players, finding items, gathering resources, commissioning items to be created, completing a trade run or caravan, leveling up a node, building a ship.

Anything at all you can do in an MMORPG can be a quest objective.

As I said above as well, the individual goal of most quests in most games is something I can see being boring. Killing 25,000 of the same mob is tedious.

However, give players options as to how they complete that quest and suddenly the quest is more interesting.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

However, give players options as to how they complete that quest and suddenly the quest is more interesting.

If Intrepid manage to have their questing as open-ended as that - I'll be all for it.

Noaani

Ludullu wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

However, give players options as to how they complete that quest and suddenly the quest is more interesting.

If Intrepid manage to have their questing as open-ended as that - I'll be all for it.

Archeage had a small amount of this.

There were often (not always) multiple mob types you could kill to advance a kill quest, and you had the option of overdoing the quest in order to get a bigger reward (sometimes it was best to do this, sometimes it was bedtime to move on). I'm fairly sure GW2 did similar as well.

The point really is that the more options developers give players for how to complete a quest, the more thinking players do. This makes questing less mindless, which is always good.

This is what I mean by people not liking a specific content type probably only having had experience with bad versions of that content type. Can't blame anyone for that, but I do wish more people understood the concept.

Laetitian

Noaani wrote: »

Ludullu wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

You seem to have a low opinion of what questing can be

Mob fights, npc dialogue, puzzles, pure lore text.

What else is there? Give me at least one example.

Killing players, finding items, gathering resources, commissioning items to be created, completing a trade run or caravan, leveling up a node, building a ship.

These fall into two categories:

Straight path to quest completion (e.g. finding items with map markers or clues that lead through a direct path; commissioning items that can be completed in one direct path without chance of failure)
and interrupted path to quest completion (e.g. Finding items where clues reveal themselves over time as you play the game; perhaps a messenger reaches you after a while, perhaps you find a sign in the sky at night, perhaps you have to do something the next time you do something special like pariticpate in a siege or run a dungeon, in order to receice your next clue; commissioned items with wait times and failure chances, etc.)

The first type offers no solution to Ludullu's point.
The second one is much better for presence in the world. It's great in single-player games.
One thing I've experienced in MMOs though is that people are so used to doing their formulaic quests that when they receive quests that can't be completed immediately, they *still* act as if they were on that quest the entire time, without interacting with the world around them, until all their quests are completed. Because they want all the quest rewards first and have no eyes for anything "lesser." If that means spending 30 minutes to run from special-resource-node-across-the-map to resource node 20 times for 10 hours without talking to anyone, that will still be how they go about that quest.
And you can't blame them, because in other games, completing quests before doing anything else is how you make sure you get all the quests in the most efficient order to progress through levels.

That's where I think you have to be careful in how you present the quest to the player so they know they will need to approach this quest more gradually. Otherwise you get quests that will be perceived as shitty while players will still be removed from the world.

Point being, you can pour a lot of effort into making quests good, but little details can still cause everything to be a waste. Much easier just to make the farming/dungeons/bosses/caravan-war-siege loop good, instead of trying really hard to make quests good, only to end up with a ton of mediocre quests that keep players separated from all the other content that's much better at naturally leading players from one interaction into the next.

Azherae

Does it really make sense to put too much effort into that for this specific game though?

This is one of the few times where I think just 'telling the person to go play FF14 if that is how they prefer it' is entirely valid. Sure, everything is a matter of degrees, but if we want quests and Story Arcs (and Intrepid says they do), making too much concession for the player type that tunnelvisions the latest quest they got, doesn't seem like it would be worth it because that player won't be particularly successful in the rest of the game anyway.

For me personally, a good quest is anything that adds context to something that was probably a thing a player might choose to do on their own anyway. The big ones are kinda cool, but I don't pay as much attention to them as a source of content because they are generally a formula and they're often too rewarding.

It's a roleplaying game, for there to be roleplay involved for me, I need to be able to see why I am the type that chooses to do, or ignore, a quest. So players who 'don't even view it as a choice' or 'complain that they got tired of a quest that didn't seem to suit them but felt they needed to finish it anyway' don't really seem to me like they're 'playing the right genre'. Or at least, if they want to play Ashes, they're far away from their end of the bell curve.

Noaani

Azherae wrote: »

Does it really make sense to put too much effort into that for this specific game though?

Due to the node system, no.

The node system - to me - is little more than a guarantee that all non-PvP content will be the worst version possible, as the developers simply won't have the time to create multiple versions of good content.

I'd like to imagine it wasn't the case, I'd like to think the game would actually have good content, I would also rather discuss this game as if the following were not true.

Fact is though, core decisions made early on in the games development kind of guaranteed that the games content itself will be kind of shit.

They made the decision to go for quantity over quality, but then also decided to not give players access to all of that quantity.

sciffer2014

Ludullu wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

You seem to have a low opinion of what questing can be

Mob fights, npc dialogue, puzzles, pure lore text.

What else is there? Give me at least one example. The only one of those above that doesn't remove players from the "this is an open world with other players" pool is the mob fight one, which I pointed out in the original comment.

What other questing type would not remove people from the open world, in the context of what I mean by that phrase?

Actually puzzle can keep player inside the world, dungeon and dragon online did it quite well. Also NPC dialogue is a weird type of quest - I'll call them exploration quest, and those are likely to bring player inside the world if there's stop point - usually puzzle come handy to oblige the player to interact inside a specific zone -- but it can also be done with the level design forcing the player to go threw a path where he has to interact with other player to push through.

It's honestly a design situation.

Noaani

Vhaeyne wrote: »

@Noaani

I am hearing you say "Good quests" take more thought and design time.

It's like... what a waste.

The content is limited to leveling and making alts.

I mean, it isn't.

That is like saying mobs are just for leveling and alts.

In the way some people like just killing shit mindlessly, others like running quests.

You say it's wasted time - and to you it may well be. However, to others, mobs that aren't attached to quests are a waste.

An MMO should be building the game for both extremes, knowing that the vast vast majority of people fall in between the two.

Quests as a content type is kind of core to MMORPG's, or RPG's in general. Saying they are a waste of development time because you don't like them is like someone else saying crafting is a waste of developer time because they don't like it.

Otr

MyReality wrote: »

I believe all types of content should contribute towards the progression of the Node you play in but at the same time it can get very repetitive simply grinding mobs. [...]
The idea behind quests are meant at least "lore" wise to be done to help out your Node/Town. So you should want to actively gather a bunch of quests to contribute to your town.

There will be quests:

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Social_organizations

- Social organizations start to patronize Nodes once they advance to Town (stage 4).[5]

The whole idea of these societies is that they are a mechanism for progression that do not have to rely on your level progression. These are different progression paths that players can participate in. If you don't want to leave a node in your gameplay experience and you want to find as much as you can do within that city, these offer those things. Now, some quests might take you outside of the city to hunt and pursue things, but you could also perfectly be a person that is a merchant and purchases them from other travelers instead of having to go do it yourself. We want to offer players a diverse method of progression; and these systems house those benefits.[6] – Steven Sharif

- Social organizations offer quest lines to assault other organizations, but they are not permanently flagged against other social organizations.[2][7][3]

- Social organizations are run by NPCs, however there will be ranks that certain members can attain that will grant some influence over the organization.[8]

- Social organizations cater for solo players who don't wish to engage in guild-oriented organizations.[9][10]

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