Video of a new player face planting on Quest Hand In

I agree with @Vladamir Begemot and others. I found it confusing at first (not hard to figure out or anything, just a bit illogical) that the player is always presented a multiple choice option when only a yes/no response is possible.

If we can only choose to give or not give, why are we presented with our entire inventory of quest items as an option? I don't believe that that adds anything to the game. A useless feature that inconveniences the operator is bad design at its most fundamental definition.

I'm not totally unsympathetic to @Daxxe Diggler 's perspective, though. Altbough it is poor design, it's not hard to figure out. There are a lot of broken pieces to questing, and this particular aspect is a head scratcher, but it was never impossible to figure out for me or my wife.

A yes/no option should be presented with a yes/no interface.

 

I don’t think the whole lore thing was an issue. Half if the quests in the starting part didn’t have more and the other half did.

But the same issues I found were the ones this kid saw too. Remember when the one quest had you looking at the persons knees? Or when you type answers/questions into the dialogue part and it came back with weird answers? The quest giver Samuel glitched out? The length of loading screens.

These and a lot more is what I found disappointing in a game that a few releases ago they supposedly redid the starting scene and quests.

Those few videos should show why the player count in this game is so low especially after F2P was introduced.

 

That is the downfall I see a lot from people... Not viewing from other people.

 

Well, I apologize if my post sounded insensitive, and I certainly do care about getting new players to stay here. As a backer and Seed Invest investor, I struggle between what I want to be in the game and what I think the game "needs" to succeed and stay in business. But you have to realize that every time they dumb down the quest system, it makes it less fun for some other players (like me) who backed this game because it was "different".

I've been testing and playing this game since R18 and, back when I started, the quests were much harder and even then I personally never had any problems figuring out where to go, what to do, or how to turn in an item to an NPC. I had to read what they said to me, ask them questions to get more info, and sometimes had to come up with a response that wasn't an underlined click-word! Sure, there were a few bugs and that made it frustrating at times, but I liked the design of the system's original method to handling quests where it required to you actually figure something out. The person in the OP's video (as well as other posters here in this thread) seem upset that they have to figure something out. I guess that's the part that bugs me is that the need to put forth some effort is being fought.

When I first started, there was no compass marker or waving sparkly hands for a quest giver. You had to take notes or rely on a shoddy journal entry to help you remember who wanted what... but that kept me more engaged and made me pay attention more to my surroundings. And, there wasn't even that popup box that basically asked you to hand over a specific item and click a "give items" button. We had to have a conversation with the NPC and say the right keywords to get them talking more about the object they wanted or the task they wanted us to perform, then eventually you would get the proper hint to say the right word for them to take the object or accept that you accomplished the task (and yes, we had to do it going up hill, both ways, in the snow too ). I understand that can be challenging to some people, especially those who might have limited time to play, etc. But, to me that was a fun aspect of questing and the challenge of figuring out what the NPC needed and learned a little about what was going on in the game world... that was what set this game apart from other games. For me, the reward was the ability to complete the quest... not the reward itself.

To make my point even more, this game was originally advertised as having a quest system that doesn't "hand hold" and lead you through the quest. They even jokingly gave us livestream rewards of Top Hats with ? and ! on them (to make fun of other games that do that with Quest NPC's). But they eventually gave in and dumbed down the quest system with compass markers and the blue sparkles and waving hands of Quest NPC's. Apparently, us dinosaurs who like to think and figure things out really are a dying breed.

What the quest system has evolved into is much easier now and people still can't figure it out? I'm sorry, but if the quest system turns into what other games do... click an NPC and automatically get a reward with no other effort" than I will likely just stop doing any non-essential quests. At that point, you may as well just go out and kill monsters or gather resources because "doing quests" won't be fun. Hell, you might as well just change it so that you can go to a town crier and say "Quest Rewards" and get the rewards to every quest for that town at one time. I mean, everyone wants it to be easy right?

Now, stepping down from my high horse... I do understand that the the system is quirky and needs polish for sure. If a quest requires you to go out and get an item and bring it back to an NPC, then maybe coming back to them should just open the trade box without having to wrestle them into asking for it. I'm all for UI improvements and smoothing out the Quest system if people are struggling with navigating the turn in process.

But the way it is now really isn't too difficult to figure out. You say the right keyword (usually they underline what you need to say and you can just click them without even typing) and the trade box opens... which clearly states the items you need at the top. If you have so many items that you need to find the item they want, there is a filter box at the top where you can type a few letters and it narrows the inventory list to find it easier. Could it be simplified and just take the item they want? Sure... but don't tell me what they have now is too hard to figure out.

Now, the person in the OP's videos stated they did it before, but couldn't remember how to do it again... to me, that's not a game design flaw, that's just a person not paying attention to the tutorials. And I'd be willing to bet that person never read the Players Guide that explains how to do most things.

Again, I'm really trying not to be insensitive but I know it sounds that way. I'm just trying to express that as a player who enjoys the challenging aspect of quests, it saddens me that people want to remove that part of the game and make it "automatic". To me (and many others), it's not a quest if there is no journey. Please consider that when trying to understand my viewpoint on the subject. It's not about saying I'm smart and you are dumb so too bad. So I apologize again if that's how my post sounded.

 

@Daxxe Diggler I understand your points, but I don't believe they excuse poor UI design.

We've been playing this a long time, it's easy to forget just how wonky that particular window is when you first see it. That's why it's important to watch others experience it for the first time, note where the hang ups are, and address them.

No hand holding doesn't correlate to bad UI design. You can have tough quests and a good interface.

 

In the old days, we had no internet, we had no phones, no walk through videos, no channel specifically for the game, no player videos.... and we also struggled... but we persevered.

Back in those days, we didn't go on online forums and beg developers to change their games to make things easier for us - we just sucked it up.

We walked to Britain(ny) in the snow, uphill, both ways !

 

WOW, I started at 13:00, that was painful to watch . . . the trade window pops up and there is an "items to give" side. . how do you not figure this out really easily LOL. I don't think you can blame SOTA for this one. .sometimes people are just slow. .

 

There is nothing "supposed" about it. They DID redo the starting scene and quests. That has nothing to do with loading screens or bugs like Samuel, that still exist.

 

Well,
as a story loving Avatar I wrote a lot threads about
- illogical things appearing on our paths through Novia ...

My point of view, most important to do:
1. Dialogue Box
1.1 Get rid of the input line: it suggests we could enter sentences, but there isn't a kind of good parser to handle it.
--> There are only a few words we have to write by our own in a few situations: give those words at the bottom line to click.
No input line necessary.
1.2 Only one more text line would solve 99% of the cases we have to scroll the very first information told by a npc!
May be 0,5cm left and right of the dialogue box would help, too

2. Give some simple ICONS and less heading with text. For example: watch the wonderful ICONS in shop!
We HAVE developers doing a good job with that. Also do it for a better look of the "windows", so they won't appear any longer as Windows 2.1 ...
For example:
- Quest-Symbol (?) to open current tasks inside the (J)ournal
- Symbol behind the task and at the dialogue window to fulfill it (if the target location/person is close --> Hand the correct quest item by click if it is inside our inventory!)

3. Get rid of the standard option of underlined keywords inside the text in dialogue box. It is destracting. I wrote alot about this.
It is disrupting the reading flow. And it IS very important to read carefully, without disturbing "links"...
Better way, if the words should be "highlighted" also inside the text: using bold

4. Connect targets with map.
For example: Soltown Guard sends us to Guard Captain Cugel in Ardoris to find him at the harbor.
Entering Ardoris, the map should have a pin showing his location, at least afte asking the town crier about him!
We have this target possibility inside the game - it works also if you are asking the town crier about free lots!!! So why shouldn't it work for persons?
And if someone uses the blue sparkles on compass hes location should be shown blue on compass, too...

5. Loading Screens, especially at the beginning are confusing. What are they showing to me? Has it something to do with the place I will enter now?
Please, show a picture of the place we get in, for example: entering Ardoris, a picture of Ardoirs, entering Shuttered Eye, not a picture of Malice ...
And it would be nice to see information from the scene at this loading scene, too:
Kind of town, Leader, special places, currently connected task(!!!) --> Information could be provided AFTER we got them!
For example: Entering Ardoris shows an Aedoris picture (there are more than one!)
Ardoris, capital of the Perennial Coast, ruled by Lord Siranto and Lady Khasi.
Visit the heart of Ardoris: The Sequanna Square, devoted to Sequanna, the titan of Love!
Most merchants can be found there ...
[If we would have the quests to do]
- Find Guard Captain Cugel at the Guard house at the harbor.
- Visist Lord Siranto and Lady Khasi to ask about the Undead assault

6. We only should see the places, we met in game, especially on the overworld map. The huge lands making it easy to get lost! Especially, because we are sent from beginning to 3 different places! Solace Bridge, Highvale and Blood River ...
Post Episode 1 plan! "Fog of War" ...

7. Question of Vladamir: (And why does Nina still not play a die emote?)
I asked this a few times to Lum, and he told they wouldn't have the technic to do so.
I don't understand, why they can't use the "playing dead" emote on a NPC, however ...

8. The starting scenes were redone a few times. The scenes are well done now, also the new Solace Bridge scene looks fantastic!
What takes the fun away to discover and doing the quests are all those "little" things we know about (I tried to write about above)
Taking away the fun and the (story) FLOW is not just one of those "little" things, it's all of them together ...
Alot of people are still thinking most of quests are bugged, even if they are not!!! And really: most story quests are working well! But the UI and Dialogue window (including input line) makes things not easy to flow ...

9. 2019
Unfortunately The Q1 / 2019 tells nothing about Quest overhaul, as a lot of us expected. It should start immediately to get rid of demotivated players who resfuse to do questing.
It just should be fun. And again: The stories are interesting, even the dialogues are often fun, but the presentation is a kind of destroying the flow ...

I am looking forward to End of March, waiting, what Q2 information will tell about ...

 

I don't think the game should start catering to so called "de-motivated players'.

AKA Easy mode Button.

I'm sure there are some players that want 100 GMs in 10 hours, and beat the game and have millions of gold... without doing any long, hard work.

Currently there is a real level of respect for those that have put in the time and it shows.

It's certainly not going to appeal to everyone so why try ? Instead, get better at what it IS good at, which is what the Roadmap looks like it's doing.

 

Well, tell it "de-motivating user interface" instead of "de-motivated players"?
I am a great fan of the storyline. And such videos or comments from NEW players (even if they provide a kind of sarcasm!) are confirming a few points, which are destroying the feeling of a good storyline.
A game, who wants to covince with 5 Episodes of epic storyline should provide a good feeling, while doing (also difficult!) quests.
I am not for making all easy(!), I am just for a kind of not annoying game play ...

For example: giving the opportunity to write free text wakes expectations how someone could communicate with NPC. No reason to provide something which won't work - and which is not necessary to play a good game.
Unfortunately such "features" leading to annoying moments and bad game experiences ... Why? We don't need it. You're right: get better at what it IS good at: The story and quests are good, the scenes are designed so nice, the music is great ...
Why destroying a very good experience with those stuff? (remember the annoying "player xyz is off/online"? <<--- That's what we're talking about).
This has nothing to do with catering "so called" players or making the game more easy to gain everything in a few hours ...
It's what the developers are calling 'quality of life' improvements

 

The thing is, you're going off one video that confirms your biases.

What about this video: ?

In that video the guy types to the NPCs and loves it. It's old school. So who is correct ? Your video ? Or this one ? See the issue ?

Anyway I think 2019 will be a great year for the game, assuming that the current player base is enough to keep the lights on.

 

What I said wasn't just about this one video, which Vladamir posted. My posting wasn't and still isn't about if a player was/is correct or not.
There was alot of feedback in the past from players complaining about the quest engine.
(Most times of Ultima -not online- player).

I watched the video you posted and I think it also confirms, that the input line can't fulfill the expectations of someone who wants to communicate this way with npc ...
After typing a few words/sentences at the same NPC shows, that (s)he won't understand more than a few provided keywords at the bottom (or underlined, if it is activated).

Don't get me wrong, please: I also like(d) text/graphic adventures. But even a worse one had a kind of parser. The input line in Shroud of the Avatar is very restricted ...
And I assume they will not make it an intelligent parser like infocom. From what I heard from given feedback and what I experienced by myself, it is more confusing and frustrating.

I also think it will be a great year for SotA And I am excited, how the Questsystem, Dialogue box and Journal will look next year ... Looking forward to play Episode 2

Besides: Merry Christmas

 

Merry Christmas to you as well

 

In the video I posted the new player did type and seemed to enjoy it. He laughed when the NPC called him something weird he had typed, he did the usual "oh this will respond to me" bit before realizing that it's just a show.

He put in a lot more work than you're giving him credit for, reading all his letters again in the inventory when he did his second video, etc. Reading much of the text out loud for the viewer. Zooming in on it so we can read it.

Clearly he was into the idea.

But will he keep playing when figuring out the UI (and lets not pretend this is the only weird window) was causing so much pain?

I've long long loooong said the quest hand in interface is bad. I stand by it. The videos remind us why.

That's literally ALL I'm getting at today. A quick stream lining of how quests get handed in is not a giant task. It also doesn't dumb down the game. I'm not talking about redoing the journal system, etc.

UI is on the radar and this is a window that specifically needs help.

And Merry Christmas.

 

There are some good reasons why these were added.

Sparkly hands - A very large number of NPC's are generic or incomplete.
Which means wading through 100s or 1000s of NPCs to figure out which are not placeholders.

No compass marker - Many quest item placements are designed for 1st person view.
People who play with the camera zoomed out are not able to see a quest item even if it is on the floor right in front of them.

Easiest way is just to make an option for your preferred questing preference


The best means I have seen for directing players to quest NPCs was in Aerie.

When you approach a building, words pop up on your screen that say " You hear crying from a nearby inn"

They were on the right track with this and then they stopped.


Keyword system - Just doesn't work.
There are way too many responses you can give to an NPC most of which result in "I don't understand"
It takes about 5 seconds for any immersion to be broken.
The fun and challenge should be the quest not finding out what word some developer chose to use as a keyword to continue a conversation.
There are too many other issues to get into


To be realistic, there is a ton of work to get a proper quest system into this game.
You have 100s of NPC's, tons of zones, broken journal, maps, interface etc etc etc

The most important thing is to get a complete quest experience into this game. Even if it's not top notch, it can always be improved later.


They would be best off going the simplest route

When you speak to an NPC, quest dialogue box appears on your screen

You get a few paragraphs of text and then can choose from a few options


The story and lore can be made interesting, as well as your dialogue options


There is also room to greatly expand it later for more depth.