Serious request, prio on quest system.

Hi,

I am aware we are getting a new quest system, but I would really push this to be done ASAP.
Have been speaking to a few friends and wife about why they do not like SoTA.

They all came back with same annoyance: the quest system.
They feel its very poor quality, old school and so confusing they just give up on the game. And somewhere I do have to agree with that..

So again please put the quest system as high priority on your fix list.
Remove it from the EP2 list and add it to your current R&D list, the sooner this is being worked on the better.

Thanks.

 

Agreed. I firmly believe this has to be done before the big advertising push that Chris mentioned in the AMA livestream.

 

I've been sliding this comment in places like these for over a year. Gold and silver scraps, don't exist, looks tarded to be on smelt menu for so long like this. Sorry, pet peeve lol.

 

Agreed.

However, I really wish everyone would go into more detail about exactly what "old school and confusing" means to them. It's very difficult for developers to fix complaints that boil down to "it's broken".

The main issue I have is with how easy it is get the system into an out of order state. e.g. Picking up a quest somewhere in the middle, completing it, then run into an npc from earlier that tries to start you on the quest again, that if you take it, npc later on think you have completed it and now your stuck.

I also don't like given a choice to take a quest or not. Just because I talk to someone doesn't mean I want their side quest at that moment.

 

Its so bad that I can't even begin to describe it?

I've been around for a long time, so I've gotten to do the quests in stages. I should have a better understanding when i did the main quests with an alternate recently. However, half the time I din know what's going on. Dialogues are too wordy, and some feels incomplete. After the path of truth I went, huh? that's it? I guess adding cut scenes would have made a huge difference.

I also have quest logs sticking out when it should have been completed and cleared.

In my opinion, the quests feels more like an after thought. The only time it got better (in my opinion) was when @Puuk came into the picture. Sad that he's no longer around. @Sannio is probably overworked now.

My main issue:
Dialogues should have its own unique interface, and not part of the chat box. Conversations should be short and easy to understand. If it has to be long winded, have the npc give the player a book or scroll to read.

 

To add constructively. Please feel free to throw stones.

1. Need each quest to be named and have its own entry like an index. That should help with organization for player.
2. Index should be searchable by name. Bonus searchable by location of next step (similar to blue highlight).
3. Quests should have a visible indicator of Main Quest, Side Quest, Reoccurring Quest. Indicator of Episode required for quest desired. (Accessibility indicator needed for quests. I.E. Flag episode 2 quests as inaccessible for f2p with store link)
4. Quests should be sortable based on active/completed, also possibly by recency of last update.
5. Nice to have would be to have a toggleable filter on region and/or map. (Map certainly: I.E. Novia/Hidden Vale. Things like Drachenvald or Perennial Coast a desirable that may make region names more memorable to players.)
6. Each step in a quest should have a title.
7. Each step in quest should have a knowledge of what post condition step should clear this step as an active step. See note * below for details.
8. Have a Map Link for the active step in the quest as part of its entry step. Map may just highlight area on Novia/Hidden Vale where the next step is, or simply load that location map.
9. Cleared steps should be minimized but available for consultation.
10. Reoccurring quests should have an indicator and should reset their active state on completion cycle. For daily quests like oracle test, push notification of quest re-availability would help making sure the something to do list is there as needed. Reset of active state should place quest in active quest queue.
11. In the top 5 quest queue, clicking the quest should open the quest to index entry and active quest step.
12. Last selected quest in quest window should be topmost on the top 5 queue. This should give players some control over what displays in the top 5 list.
13. Convenience feature: on active quest step have a button to use a teleport to zone scroll. Decision to be made if pre-visitation of zone is required to make that button enabled. Tooltips for Player lacking a ttz scroll and not discovered desirable. Since conversations cause map markers to appear on Novia for places yet to be visited that may make the pre-visitation not a requirement or an optional thing.
14. Reset should probably be on a quest basis. Unsure if you want to make this limited by a daily, weekly, or monthly oracle received token to lower exploitability.

Note *:
- Post condition clear step number should be used for quest optionals such as

Spoiler

Visit Samael in Brookside.

. When the index of the active step advances beyond the Post condition index, then that step goes away.
- Post condition index could be used as an indicator if a quest step should be visible. Perhaps active/visible quest objectives should be reevaluated based on quest selection for an evolution fixable solution. Bug in quest flow prevents an entry from clearing. Bug fix comes in, player get automatic clean up when they click on that quest as the quest rechecks validity of that step based on the active quest index or some other indicator.
- Data evolution - Example, I have not reset quests at all since persistence. I completed the Desolis/Epitaph fetch quests ages ago (sketchbook as an example). Release 61, talking with the npc, I regained the entry of return sketchbook; however it cannot be advanced as I have already done that. Thus I have picked up some garbage on my top 5 list I cannot dispose of. So yeah, evolution of the player data for the quest system is going to be fun because in theory, it should reevaluate that quest and take it away from me as an active quest as I have already completed it and not reset my quest status.

 

That seems to indicate that the data structure used for quest population and/or its organization was incomplete or not documented well enough for all of the quest authors. Thus some authors quests worked well in the system and others didn't. Some authors seem to rely on the player using inferencing to figure things out.

Also yes, whenever you cleared the quest that may have left out important details.

Example, I got pop up screen text when I completed the quest of courage based on when I completed it describing what was supposed to take place. At that time, it hadn't been fully fleshed out animation-wise etc. Those were placeholders. I think the tempo has changed to where quests should not show up until all artwork and animations etc. are present as the hand waving was disorienting.

 

Aside from bagginess, I think a lot my issue is that it's not well presented, like a good joke delivered flatly.

1. Reduce the verbosity
2. Present it maybe in smaller-chunk word-bubbles
3. Remove the free-type ability altogether
4. Add in some cinematics

They don't have to go all-out in #4. An example of what I mean would be, if you're doing the main quest in Ardoris, and the NPC starts talk about visiting the queen person, that the camera cross-fades into an establishing shot of her castle/building, with the dialog over the top. If someone talks about going to the docks, show the docks.

If they want to get creative with it, the map/scene could have little dioramas outside of player access, that the camera could switch to.

 

I don't generally feel like the system needs to be done from scratch, and thus, warrants waiting for Ep2. There are fixes and things they can do now.

 

Being a new player this was my biggest gripe with the game. Going through the quests I even researched a lot here to see what I was missing. The common thread that came up the most asked when they would fix the system.

Someone even told me to post my experience in the new player forum for the devs to see. I did that and posted how I like the game but the quest system is so bad that I stopped doing them. I haven’t received any response from any developer or moderator or player emissary. No acknowledgement what so ever.

So I can see why this game has lost players. Seems and new system will be a little to late since it won’t be until late 2019.

At least if anything fails the player base in the game can say we told you so, we told you what was needed, we told you when it was needed, etc. The players have fought for this for a long time. Well done for those players still left.

 

The problem is that their current quest technology is utterly broken. Starting from scratch would be the best option. There are enough unity quest assets/plugins they can implement.

 

I probably won't try to debate that.

 

So I just sanity checked and Quest/Journal System revamp is not in Q1. I would imagine it would/should be sooner than later as they will probably want it to be in before really testing the episode 2 quest content.

 

Agreed this needs to be reworked. I'm well pass the starting zone when you create your avatar. and I still have the quest to find the oracle when you choose your path. VERY ANNOYING having Tasks that you cannot complete. Yes, I have gone back to the isle of storms to try and fix it but nothing.

 

I got Fallout 76 on sale for Christmas. I'm pretty new to the Fallout series and I'm not in sync with how the mechanics typically works. It's a big game, with a big world, lots of items, lots of meanies and so on. Oddly enough, the quest system works very well and here are a couple of things it does well (aka, things that SotA does not do well):

1. Integrates well into the HUD. Has the main quests separated and sub-quests/action highlighted.
2. When you complete things, it properly takes them off the hud.
3. In the interface you can disable quests, things you don't want to work on, and it de-clutters the HUD
4. It integrates properly with the map and HUD directional indicator
5. The quests make sense! Each one teaches you some aspect of the game you need to know.
6. The quest are unique, and each one feels like something new.
7. Quests help you explore the world and learn where things are

In short, quests are not disconnected and disjointed. The idea that this is not prioritized is insane. I get that it needs an overhaul but seriously, this will hinder the game. Free to Play is nice but having new players play a crippled game, even though it is free is not a good idea. Time to call a spade a spade... say the game is NOT complete, apologize profusely for this mistake, explain and commit to a series of updates that will address it. If I hear/see that they are focused on anything else that falls into the "vanity" category (new pattern, etc) then we know where their priorities are not.

 

This is the major reason why I rarely play anymore myself. Outside of the broken journal updating and broken dialogue/bugs within some quests, the overall quest experience just isn't that exciting. They are a far cry short of what I believed was going to be an "Ultima like" experience. Even Ultima IX had better quests and dialogue than what we have now in game, ok maybe that is a stretch but you guys get my drift.

All of this sandbox stuff is neat, I suppose, for those that enjoy that kind of thing. Yet, I can't help but wonder, what about those that wanted a compelling story and quest driven narrative that brings you on an exciting adventure? Shroud sadly does none of this for me. Don't get me wrong there are some GREAT quests in the game, like the Cistern for example, or anything @Puuk did. His quests were amazing! I completely agree with @Nick on this. Other that they are simply fetch quests that are really quite boring.

I do remember @DarkStarr mentioning the journal and quest updates will have to wait until episode 2 because they are completely revamping them and that's fine, but I hope at that time the story REALLY GETS SOME LOVE and that the sandbox elements take a back seat to a better quality story that is more engaging with multiple outcomes that are affected by your actions. This is just one girl's opinion, but for a @Lord British game the story needs to be better!

 

I suppose I'll bring this up again but.. a single player narrative does not work in a multiplayer environment! It just doesn't.

Probably the one thing that turns me off the most is the feeling that you cannot effect any change in the world. Of course you can't, everyone else needs to be able to do the same quests.. but when it's a single player narrative you expect your actions to mean something more than whether you cloak is white or black. How many times have 'avatars' ended the war with the kobolds? And why can't I put an end to the stuff going in the Path of Truth? The bad stand right in front you giving you the whole story and all you can do is stand there knowing they're killing people and will keep doing so? You should take a major virtue hit for just calmly walking by.

 

Before I read everyone else's (which I am probably duplicating)

• Typing brings the expectation of intelligent responses, it must be removed
  • I know it can be "neat!" sometimes, but it is 95% non-functional, and disciplined design requires that a creator removes something that is "neat!" but doesn't work
• Someone needs to read the book "Creating Emotions in Games" and methodically apply those techniques
  • IMO, giving a damn in Artifice or at Castle whatever in the Courage Path doesn't happen because of missed opportunities to apply tried and tested storytelling techniques. Use the techniques.
• Make the dialog window bigger, allow bigger fonts
  • CONTINUE
  • is bad, but having to scroll back up through the wall of text is worse
• Fix the mis-timed emotes, they seem to fire considerably later than the matching dialog at a totally random frequency
• Give NPC's and Avatars better idle and talking emotes so when we are reading an endless wall of text the character looks alive

 

Stop wasting my time:

• Remove the ability to talk to generic NPC's. If I'm opening a dialog window to find out I shouldn't have bothered, you're wasting my time. Instead, when I click have them bark "Leave me alone Outlander", "I don't talk to Outlanders", etc. It is good design to eliminate pointless interactions.
  • True story: I was playing Deus Ex recently and was actually relieved that I couldn't talk to NPC's who had nothing to say. They just did a little bark, and I thought "Wow, I wish Shroud was like that".

 

The last 5 years I did alot game testing (especially quests). There were really small(!) and disturbing, distracting things which should have been stopped immediately.
It took about 5 years to stop "Player xyz is off/online", even so many people told how awful it was ...
A few really annoying things were told as "by design".

Fortunately, that's history

Hope came, as focus went on debuggging. And especially @Sannio did really good work and showed good reaction to our feedback, even(!) the team and tpd (time per developer ) got smaller.
So many -over months- existing bugs were fixed in a very short time by him!

And like Feeyo and all others wrote in THIS thread, I also was expecting, the work on Questsystem would start at least January (from statements before we expected this for Q4!).

I also was astonished, reading the Q1 information:
Episode 2 starts END of Q1 (March) with new land masses ...

Well, we could say: why should they work on quest system, even there's no new quest possibility for Episode 2 before Q2?
The past could give the answer: The quest implementation started too late. There was not enough time to show better reaction until launch ...

Over the years I read alot of posts from players:
Some told, it shall not be too easy. The Questbook is enough.
And others (I assume the majority, also many new players) told and are still telling: I can't find where to go and don't know exactly what to do.

The answer was the " not an '!' " implementation: blue sparkle on NPC and compass ...

As I wrote a few times: This wasn't necessary, if the quest task architecture would have been connected to the map.
Unfortunately a map was implemented very late (programmed not by the team from beginning), so there was no time to do so.
Work has been done and important is: the sparkles can be toggled off for all players who won't like it!
Also important is: there are a few blue markers still not working correctly. My expectation was, that they would be fixed until end of this year ...
at least, until Episode 2 early access starts ...

I wrote alot about my experience, like
- My (big) summary of points for a better story feeling, Juli 25, 2018
or
- My short summary, Sept 19, 2018
and don't want to repeat it inside this thread

At least, I really hope, the Quest system overhaul will reflect what we're talking about in many threads, like this one.
An easy to use UI (show up things and "to do's" on screen, when we need them!)

And to say it again, because I think it is important:
I played through the story - enjoying it. (Also reading Sword of Midras with background information).
The story is interesting. But alot of "little" distracting, annoying things are preventing to enjoy the story - that's what really makes me sad.
I really hope, @Lord British will be closer involved into the quest design in 2019

And if we get a first view with Q2, it's okay, if we can expect what we all really want:
A system, presenting the story elements in an easy way so we can enjoy it - not confused by scrolling up, searching for unclicked words inside the text ...

Therefor an current experience I made yesterday, while creating a very new character:
Leaving Solace Bridge we are sent to Solace Bridge Outskirts by Edvard. Meeting our first Soldier, talking to him we find the keyword "BUY" !!!
Well, we just get out of the intro, rescued that little girl, awaiting adventure, and the first Soldier we met gives the keyword "buy" ???
Who would think about buying something, just escaped undead and now trying to help other refugees?

That's the moments I am shaking my head about some illogical things.
Don't get me wrong: after running up the hill, meeting Captain Kinsey, it's okay to have a few people around where I can buy stuff.
But would that be my first idea arriving there?

Quest testing should be a very important part of our story driven Episodes, not only typing errors.
And therefor we need enough time to test the first quests with the new quest engine as soon as possible, before more is implemented.
So there is enough time to change annoying things ...

If we're happy with handling the first 5-10 quests, we also will be with the next 100s...

I am really looking forward for Q2 information and the first live streams showing the new quest engine