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Dear Mr. Garriott: the questing experience...

Discussion in 'Release 53 Feedback Forum' started by Gix, Apr 28, 2018.

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  1. Anpu

    Anpu Avatar

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    If I recall correctly, they are working on a new technology for the quest system, and that is just going to take time. The current state of the questing system will basically still be the same, and fixing bugs on them, here and there.
     
  2. Alleine Dragonfyre

    Alleine Dragonfyre Avatar

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    I love SoTA but will have to say the quest system is in need of fixing and enhancement. It's a beautiful system, unique and complex, and deserves some love.
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2018
  3. Paladin Michael

    Paladin Michael Bug Hunter

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    Concrete information about that?
    I just know about the working on Journal in Q2, as Darkstarr told in Q2 2018 Schedule Update:
     
  4. Paladin Michael

    Paladin Michael Bug Hunter

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    We all do so! :)
     
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  5. Rada Torment

    Rada Torment Community Ambassador (ES)

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    Agree. There are some good points in this thread, thank you all for the feedback.
     
  6. Preachyr

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    I haven't spent much time questing yet, but I've read it's just a lot of fetch and delivery quests.

    I'm waiting for improvements before I dive into it, so i'm curious what in your opinion is unique and complex about the quest system?
     
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  7. 2112Starman

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    I generally try quests again once ever few months. I gotta admit, I started again last month during 2x exp and questing was massively better all around then last time I tried, but its still buggy.
     
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  8. Paladin Michael

    Paladin Michael Bug Hunter

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    In my opinion the story made huge progress. All over the four paths we receive interesting information about history and curious things which happen actually.
    Don't forget it's just the beginning of FIVE Episodes ...

    Currently I started the Path of Love again and it's really not easy to go further. But I take the time to report bugs I meat on my way ;)
    Just complaining about bugs isn't really helpful - I am hoping all people who complain take the time to report the bugs!

    I am really happy for the given information of Darkstarr about Quest Journal work in Q2. (Well until End of June :))
    I also hope while doing so, a lot of those disturbing/distracting things, like Gix mentioned above in this thread will be also considered and changed in a good way!
    And I can say: I enjoy(ed) to follow the story - with exception of what I wrote HERE
     
  9. Elwyn

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    I'm still saving my quest resets. One reason is that I want to make sure that all the bad quest flags get fixed, for others who started early and stopped playing, and possibly to avoid them becoming a hard-to-find problem that is still there. I don't plan on doing the reset until all the orphaned sparkles go away, and then I may wait for a 2x week as well.

    Instead, I have four accounts, and I am trying to do them each with as low of a level as possible. (It's hard to keep your level down while doing them, especially with 2x XP!) I am doing my third one right now. The hardest part seems to be the kobold camp, since there is no "take a virtue hit" way around it, like there is in Truth at Etceter. It is very hard to do as a mage, because the constant waves give you no time to refresh focus. But I was able to do it at 45 or so when I got a dog wolf.

    I played those in the first two months, and I ended up with a lot of bad quest flags, because some items and flags were changed completely.

    I wish they would have tried to program their quest flag handling in a more robust and defensive way from the start, but we've got what we've got. Another troublesome thing is that some NPCs will simply clam up completely when their storyline is complete, and then when side quests get added later (like for emotes), earlier players are shut out.
     
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  10. kaeshiva

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    I today delved into repeating the outskirts quests. (My feedback last release from the main questline runs pretty parallel to the op, still)
    My general impression of these is that they are much better.
    I really enjoyed being able to immerse myself into a zone, with many objectives to find along the way, with side quests, things to collect, etc. I mused to my husband, wouldn't it be nice if all the zones were like this, filled with things to do that could fill hours, instead of just a camp of mobs you run at and slaughter.

    Blood River Outskirts in particular is very well done, I had no issues this time, other than the quest-cleaner-upper script removing some things I think it shouldn't have, as I was getting quest turn ins from talking to folks long after my journal was 'clean'

    Highvale Outskirts was not nearly as annoying as I remember it, though there's still issues with the ice barrier key disappearing and mirrors not working and quest journal entries appearing and disappearing at a whim. I ran out of quests and couldn't remember what to do so had to go play 'guess the word' with all the key npcs a few times to get the main story quest going again. The monastery on the hill is nice looking at all, but really inconvenient as a quest hub. But overall, was able to complete everything with a minimum of frustration.

    Solace Bridge Outskirts again, most of it worked well, though really had trouble getting certain quests to 'trigger' - and this was knowing said quests existed so I was persistent in harassing the npcs.

    The problems:

    Quest cleaner upper script is deleting things it shouldn't,
    Quest wavings, blue icons, markers, etc. are all completely meaningless and don't go away when finished, leaving you to think there's more to do. I have a quest indicator telling me to collect black iron ore from the truth quest on the exit of solace bridge...? (And that quest has been done already). It seems that the cleaner upper script doesnt affect the markers at all? Arabella is still waving at me and she can see I'm wearing the shroud, no I don't need to go to the oracle in brittany, woman!

    The dialogue system has made me into the sort of player I despise
    You know, the type that just mashes all the keywords and tries to get through it. This makes me very sad, because the early iterations of the dialogue I saw (like, really early) you actually looked like you were having a conversation. And that was neat. But so so impractical. The questlines are, for the most part lets face it, linear, with occasionally a choice and occasionally that choice has some bearing on the outcome. Why not just simplify this, have the npc present the quest and background, and only require player input if there's a choice to be made? This would alleviate 99% of the frustrations I think, especially those revolving around 'can't get it to update'. I think the dialgoue system is a nice idea on paper but the implementation is poor and impractical and is a hindrance to questing in general.

    I'll give an example - in Blood River, I had a 'choice' to bring elf scalps to the guy, or go tell Alberic that he wanted scalps and then follow a quest fragment to bring 'fake' scalps. Now, in the short journey between the camps I happened upon a corrupted elf who dropped an elf scalp. I went and told Alberic I didnt want to give the other guy elf scalps, and he set me about getting fake scalps. All well and fine . After finishing the quest entirely, I still had the journal entry "give xx elf scalps or go tell Alberic." I thought FINE, i want to clean my log, so I went and gave the guy 3 elf scalps. And it still didn't go away! Hours later, after relogging, it disappeared, presumably due to the quest cleaner upper script. But this was very frustrating to me.

    I currently have the "cabalist mess" questlog which, upon killing a couple of cabalists and talking to a couple caretakers, bloated my active quest journals to EIGHTEEN ITEMS, many of which despite doing exactly what it said to do, talk to xx about y, triggered nothing and removed nothing. I'm really stewing about this. Why on earth would you make a quest this way? It would have just been more sensible to have each caretaker related to a cabalist, instead of having 4 separate quests 'talk to aerie guy about corpus, talk to aerie guy about nefas...' NONE of which can be cleared presumably, until I've done all four.

    Final conclusion? The actual quests are alright, some are interesting, the backstory is good and when you read it (the first time, not the subsequent 8 times while you're trying in vain to get the thing to update) its engaging. The dialogue system and vague, clunky, disconnected, nonfunctional quest flag system destroys the experience entirely, and while its come a long way, its still, frankly, a disaster, and when I see an npc waving their arms I give them a wide berth so as not to clutter my log with pointless crap that may or may not go away if I complete it.

    Quest rewards that involve unique items, such as decorations, banners, etc. are great. Those that do not are utterly pointless, the actual experience rewards for pretty much any quest outside the outskirts are kinda pointless. The outskirts experience rewards seem good for the level. I'd love to see higher level equivalents but it seems questing just ends after the outskirts, other than the occasional "yay 5k exp and 20 gold reward" thing you find later. The cabalist quests for example? Kill a cabalist, get 8000 xp? And that's with double? Seriously? If one of those cabalists killed me, i LOSE 500k. Risk vs. reward needs a serious revisit with that.
     
  11. Xul Rasha

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    I've been playing a few weeks as a new player and pretty much agree with the OP and other posters points in this thread. The community has been great, but it feels like this game really needs another year or so of polish. I am finished with the game for now after getting a good feel for the state of the game and experiencing the frustrations mentioned. I may revisit in another year.
     
  12. kaeshiva

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    I am sorry to see you give up on it because of the questing system - the reality is that questing is a very small part of the game. In fact, in the years I've played both pre-persistence and since, it was always more about adventure, community, character development, crafting, and carving out your corner of the world, running a business, decorating your house, etc. Other than for testing purposes, in my experience nobody even bothered with quests (and some still don't) until they started giving unique deco rewards - the experience/gold rewards that they offer for the time investment is far less lucrative than just killing/harvesting stuff in pretty much any scene. I know a lot of players who have been playing for well over a year and haven't touched the quests at all, and still find the game to be a satisfying experience. If its a matter of feeling like you're doing without the rewards, there's plenty of folks who'd be happy to help shoehorn you through the quest content so you can get on with enjoying the game. If you're here for the storyline experience though, well....you may be right to revisit, sadly.
     
  13. Forum Browser

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    I'm having a very similar experience right now with both Nefas and Corpus. NONE of the caretakers seem to recognize Corpus or anything else I can think of saying to trigger their awareness of what this says I'm supposed to tell them.

    I wasn't on either of the quests triggered by "help" for killing these guys when joining a successful attempt at lifting the sieges, nor was I in party with the folks who put them down, just contributing to the damage. Tell XYZ caretaker about [Corpus/Nefas] showed up in the quest log.

    Nothing's happening in regards to discussing stuff with caretakers.

    I recall ONE quest which says literally what you're supposed to say to the person to trigger recognition (don't recall the quest) and found after a ton of typing anything I could think of that the Blood River Outskirts quest part where you get the warrant ONLY starts (and you only get the warrant) if you say "help", which is odd given that all of the NPCs clearly acknowledge ahead of that that you did what you needed to and the problem's basically solved.

    Common theme here: you can say the right thing in N-different ways and never succeed because the N+1th is what the quest system's looking for, and it's frustrating and unintuitive.

    Can anyone tell EXACTLY what you're supposed to say to the caretakers about the cabalists' defeats?
     
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  14. Forum Browser

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    IMO: It'd be nice if the thing is supposed to just be a turn-in if the NPC would recognize and accept a literal repeat of the quest name as you detail it in your journal
     
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  15. Cora Cuz'avich

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    That's not true! There's also a puzzle.
     
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  16. Floors

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    I will say, I waited to do the quests until they were uh, not buggy at release :) Anyway, since doing them, it's raised my appreciation for the game to a new level. Awesome story and quests, very Ultima-like.

    Hopefully it all gets fixed up a bit in the places it needs it. And yeah, unique decos are great as quest rewards. They should give out time limited items in quests, kinda like the old grand tour hats.
     
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  17. Tirello

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    I have to agree with Xul Rasha some.

    Though not just on how unpolished the quest system is. I have played a good number of different MMOs at release or shortly after and this one by far feels the least polished for something called released in the past 10years.

    The quest dialog window showing when friends come on or offline is one example of something that should be unacceptable when it was first introduced let alone after the game has been released.

    The vertical quest window that appears on the left side of your screen with some basic dialogue and rewards is a common MMO Trope at this point. But it is a very effective system to convey information. A modified version of this as a dialog box with the default responses along the right side would go a long way to improving the feel the quest system.

    An option to turn off zooming in on the face of the NPC you are speaking with would also improve this feel. I personally feel very claustrophobic with everything all crammed together in this view.
     
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  18. Xul Rasha

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    It’s not just the quest/journal bugs, but it is one of the factors I found frustrating. Just in general it feels incomplete and the problems as a result of r53 certainly didn’t help. Many portions of the game still seem to be in the works or planned for future release patches.
     
  19. Pounce

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    The quests that work are nice (just did the witch ghost quest in harvest) but that ism, if they work.
    There is still too much buggyness to make involved quest an thing (Why should i try to solve puzzles as long i am not sure is it an bug or an puzzle to start with...)

    This trust that things work is not there yet (for good reasons i hate to say)
     
  20. Anpu

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    Personally, I do wish that the Quests System was bumped up a bit in higher priority. Specifically the 3 Virtue Quests, and the areas associated with them. Mainly because I see that as a Core Functionality for the entire game. Additionally, those are the areas a new player is going to experience for the first time, and if those aren't working well, that's not really a good thing to be showing new players.

    Like for example the other day I was in Highvale running to the Lunar Rift and a character with the [Visitor] tag asked if I could help them. Knowing this is a Trial user I of course helped them right away. The quest they were currently needed to complete was the dreaded Report Quest. Of which my very first thought was oh gawd no..... not that one. I was however able to help him find the person he needed to talk to and send him to the next place to go. This person probably finished the quest, but then the quest is probably still stuck in his journal.......

    This really should not be happening.

    That said, the stuff that does work, as well as the stories and activities associated with the 3 Virtue quest (up to getting the Banners, I have not progressed any further than that) are excellent. Highvale being my favorite, and I really liked the slowly discovering of what happened to the Blood River. The 3 begging areas for the virtue quests are actually well done and very enjoyable.
     
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