Multiplayer rewards for storyline quests (SPOILERS)

In another thread it was revealed that a storyline quest, namely the safe return of a woman's daughter, provides a backflip emote as a quest reward.

I see a couple of sizeable issues with this.

First, let's just get this out of the way. To @Lum the Mad and anyone else involved in the creation of quests:

Seriously. The woman is grieving for her dead husband, and she decides to take the time to teach you how to do a backflip???? I mean... this is so wildly inappropriate and poorly conceived as to be comical. My heart sank a little when I read this.

But as bad as this is (and it's pretty bad, let's be honest) there is a larger problem here. On multiple levels.

First of all, there is the overall issue of giving what is essentially a multiplayer only reward for a storyline quest. It makes zero sense in context, breaks immersion, and fails to advance or enhance the storyline experience or your character in any meaningful way. You want to give emotes as rewards? Fine. Have the vendor at the multiplayer arena or dungeon give it to you as an in game achievement for battling other players. Or something.

And then there is the other problem of offline play. What is the reward for the quest if you play offline? An emote that has zero use? Or are they creating separate quest resolutions? How much time is that going to take, and how does that new resolution affect the balance?

And that leads to the bigger question: does this happen a lot? I ask you, community, are there other known instances of multiplayer only rewards for storyline quests?

 

and how many of these issues can we resolve before this supposed release? Story complete...

 

And why would you want to learn a standing still backflip when pressing the "S" key twice will give you a better lookin back flip?

 

This is the one and only quest, I remember, an emote is teached in this way. The sense about Emotes could be asked also in online game. People could find them useless. And same at Solo play.

If it is good to teach it inside a quest?
Beside the Kind of Emote in this case:
Why not. You can use it, you mustn't.
And backflip in a fight can be useful...
I wondered in this moment:
Can we do backflip in a fight, before we learned this emote? If not, the Emote would work correct.

If it is the right thing at the right time, to learn it, that's another question, as you explained.

 

i doubt the reward is not just the emote. xp, maybe some gold. everyone gets something they can definitely use. if they also get something they may or may not want, what's it to you? same with the virtue students' books quest.

 

Sorry but the "what's it to you" argument doesn't really hold water.

Besides, I already stated what it is to me.

 

Actually, as I remember it the woman gives you a back flip emote for saving her daughter. I believe the husband part is another conversation, but if you save her daughter AND tell her about her husband she rewards you. (I'm not entirely sure about this because it's been a while since I completed these quests)

Still, it's good feedback to separate the two quest lines so that a back flip emote is not rewarded near the time that she learns of her husbands fate.

It would be nice however, if the person giving this feedback ACTUALLY witnessed the quest and didn't just hear about it third-person. That way we could all be sure what was happening and not blaming the development team for things they may not have done in a public forum.

 

Really? That's what you focus on? I guess we should just assume the multiple community members who have given first hand accounts of this are all lying.

Even now, you go out of your way to discredit anyone with valid criticism. Unless it's you, of course.

Either that or this is yet another blatant attempt to derail a thread.

Smh

 

I'm trying to keep things in perspective here. You're the one that brought up that the quest was about getting a back flip after learning about her husband. If the thread is really only about multiplayer rewards, then why even bring that part up?

If I'm correct (and I'm not 100% sure I am) and the back flip is rewarded for finding her daughter...then what's the point of all this? I'm not trying to say that your other points are not valid, I'm just trying to point out that perhaps you should start playing the game for yourself and giving feedback that is actionable. Because giving feedback based on hearsay is not going to help fix things now, it's too late in the game for that.

So if the game stinks after release, do you blame the developers? Do you blame the people like me that finished the quest lines and provided feedback? Or do you blame yourself for not testing the game and giving actual feedback that they can use? Because if you're wrong about what exactly is happening here, it's going to be dismissed, right? Then who's to blame? It can't be the developers because you're not even giving them the right feedback, in fact if it's not accurate you're just wasting their time.

If you have solid feedback based on actual events you experienced, I'll applaud it, because I want the game to be the best it can be.

 

Actually she will explain why she will teach you it

6/17/2017 1:01:22 PM] Abigail: Good day to you, traveller. I'm Abigail, mother of the young girl you helped save in Solace Bridge. My very dear thanks for your efforts on our behalf. It is truly sad that Johan has passed on, yet at least our daughter will survive. I have sent her with a relative on to Ardoris... hopefully I will be able to follow her presently.
[6/17/2017 1:01:22 PM]
[6/17/2017 1:01:24 PM] Fi: daughter
[6/17/2017 1:01:24 PM] I spoke with Abigail to make sure her daughter, Charlotte Gray, Made it safely from Solace Bridge.
[6/17/2017 1:01:24 PM] Abigail: Thank you so much for your help finding Charlotte, traveller! This makes me so happy, I could do backflips and cartwheels!
[6/17/2017 1:01:24 PM]
[6/17/2017 1:01:25 PM] You gained 2500 experience needed for skill development!
[6/17/2017 1:01:25 PM] You have learned to perform "Backflip".
[6/17/2017 1:01:28 PM] Fi: backflips
[6/17/2017 1:01:28 PM] Abigail: Well... I was once an actress, you know.

 

Thanks, liz.

So it's clear that this reward is specifically for bringing back the daughter to the mother. Which makes sense!

But because you can also talk freely with the mother about her lost husband, I can see how people could still get confused, and that's great feedback for @Lum the Mad to consider.

 

[6/17/2017 1:01:25 PM] You gained 2500 experience needed for skill development!

There is the reward for the quest. The back flip is extra.

 

Pretty much every quest in every rpg that gives an item as a reward also gives experience. Suggesting that this particular quest in this particular mmo is different and the emote is just a random tacked on item is kinda clutching at straws.

Not necessarily the same kind of straws as in BDF's strawman up there, mind you. Different kind of straw.

 

Interestingly enough, as you can see where I quoted myself, I stated that the reward was for the return of a daughter in the very first sentence of my OP.

Yes, the irony in multiple people chastising me for not doing my due diligence is palpable.

And for me personally, 2 lines of throwaway dialogue doesn't really justify a woman teaching you a backflip while mourning her recently deceased husband.

Oh wait, no, she says it's sad that her husband is dead. Make that 3 lines.

My bad.

 

I'm not sure I would characterize the story as outside of multiplayer, or emotes as necessarily useless in single player (although currently in general they are, I could see uses).

But I agree with you on the main point; I don't see it as particularly good storytelling for the character to teach a backflip like this no matter how much you've made her happy. A lot of the emote teachings do feel like they're a poorly fit shoe that's crammed onto the NPCs just so they can teach the emotes, without regard for how it affects the atmosphere of the game.

 

That's fair enough, and I do agree that in some games and some cases emote could be perfectly valid in a storyline based situation. All it would take is making said emote useful in any part of the game other than socializing. Does this game ever do that?

And the context definitely matters.

If, for instance, you infiltrated the thieves guild, and the leader at the end of the quest teaches you a Jimmying emote which could then be used to break into windows, I would be down with that.

 

I got a laugh out of the spirit talker teaching me the tiphat emote when he wasn't wearing one. A priestess of Love teaching the kiss emote is reasonable if a little off as she has drifted away from her husband.

 

Yea, maybe salute emotes could have some story purpose, like in secret salutes, wave emotes could get NPC attention, kneel emotes actually have a purpose for stealthing, etc. We'd of course need a better UI for it, being able to drag it to the hotbar, for instance.

The only one I can think of that's currently useful is the spyglass emote.

 

Oh? What does it do?

All these are great ideas. But if we are being honest, does anyone here actually believe port is going to take the time to implement anything like this?

An easier, more production friendly solution would just be to shift rewards around to other more appropriate npcs, like ones in PvP zones or ones involved in social activities (say, a jester).

But I don't actually think anything like that will happen either. Especially with so many community members shouting to the rooftops that it's totally cool the way it is.

 

Well, its the method by which you use your spyglass. Lets you get a magnified view of the distance. Well, actually it isn't too great, but its more than just acting out an emote.