New Player Feedback #2

I'm now in Ardoris on my SotA adventure and it's starting to get really frustrating to play.

The quest tracking seems to have vanished completely (I guess it's something just now being wired in).

Some of the side quests are interesting but it's frustrating when there's reference, for example, to "Investigate the tower". What tower? W here? The player owned lots have huge buildings because everyone seems to always want to build the tallest building. There's no quest icon. There's two "towers" on the inadequate in-game map but they are balls of lighting so I doubt that's those are guard towers.

On top of that, the quest tracker has stuff like "ask X about Y" and you do and it doesn't update it just stays there.

I've been playing RPGs for a really long time (including the Ultima series way back when) and I don't think I've been this frustrated just tying to do simple quests. (Heck I can't even find who I'm supposed to give this sack of mail to!)

Maybe I should just try this again in 6 months?

 

Again I'm sorry you are struggling. Are you only interested in Quests? There are so many other things to do too in this game. Learning the game a little bit might make it easier to find places. The quests will be there for you. I am happy to show you other facets of this game any time and also there are many players who have completed the quests that can advise you. I didn't want to start the quests yet but I have' done a few and knowing the world a little I honestly feel that can help. It is a massive world.

 

I think you’re looking for the Tower of the Shuttered Eye - it’s near Soltown.. unless you’re on the “black arrow” quest in Ardoris - in which case it’s a bit confusing but basically you’re looking for a guard tower near the NPCs who are in distress.

 

I'm also struggling with quests. I reset my quest flags and finding half the quests I do confusing or bugged. Not a great experience so far after waiting years to play through the story. I'm hoping it gets better.

 

I play RPGs (and adventure games) for story. I don't really care about housing, crafting, PvP, dungeons...

The particular quest is in Ardoris and is involving someone that shot a child from a tower. The quest tracker and journal say "Investigate the tower" but no markers or anything. The only 'towers' on the "map" are these electrical ball things. (I think it's the black arrow quest, it's hard to tell - the quest journal seems to be a confusing mishmash of stuff too.)

Between the glitchy/incomplete quest tracker and the quests themselves it's hard to tell if I'm doing it wrong or if they're bugged. (I still have get the painting on the compass bar for the quest in the first public area and I gave the painting to the father ages ago.)

I know Richard & Starr can do quest/mission trackers, the one in Tabula Rasa worked well enough.

Update: I just read through the roadmap for 2018 that Starr posted. I think it might be best if I just come back to this in 6-12 months. (UI improvements and quest stuff are all over the Q2 updates.) IMO they 'launched' this way too early. Again.

 

I love real new player feedback. Shows how often we think something is common knowledge while it just isn't.

 

I re-set my quests a couple of weeks ago and honesty they really do seem to be a rather disappointing mix of uninspiring and buggy.

I tried to get into them for a couple of evenings then got bored and frustrated and gave up. Suppose will try again at some point but at the moment the whole quest element of SOTA is rather poor from my point of view sadly.

 

Agree sadly.... I am a quester at heart, and I am so disappointed with the quests here ... they are not fun, and too buggy still.... this , at this stage of the game, should not be .... JMHO

 

I've seen a couple people mention 're-set'ting quests, how do you do this? (Just curious)
I am going to just table SotA for now and let it cook for a while longer.

 

Without any criticism, I recall an early and important game objective from the Devs. Quests will require thought, research, interrogation and communication.

There will be no hand holding, no big ? or ! above quest givers, no breadcrumb trails to objectives.. There have been quite a few compromises to this over the last year, but quests in SOTA still require more work to complete than most of today's cookie cutter MMOs.

That said, the buggy quest sparklies ✨ and journal issues are a complete pain and the time it's taking to sort them out is hugely frustrating and damaging to the post release game.

 

I'm actually fine with the 'you gotta use your brain' style for quests too but the journal needs to be a lot better at providing at least a vague nudge and update properly when you do finish a step (like have it add "Discovered X about Y, need to look into Z.")

The UI also has a general issue in larger towns where there are so many compass icons you can't use the compass as a compass.

Anyway be back for release 65~70.

 

I enjoy a lot of things about SotA, my one fear with this project was trying to create a game that combines good solo RPG elements with good mmorpg elements. In regards to questing in SotA, I prefer to record my own hand written journal as the current journal is hard to find stuff especially if I have too many quests going at the same time.

As far as bugs in quests go, it's annoying but I have been gaming long enough to know it happens a lot in games even in AAA games. I been playing Farcry 5 and some quests are just bugged to hell and in Kingdom Come: Deliverence, I lost 6 hours of game time due to one quest bug. I had to go back redo the previous 6 hours of content because of one stupid bug.

 

There were a few times where I had to type in a guessed word to make the quest compete or trigger, something I knew from previous Ultima games. It wasn't always in the list. I know that new players are going to struggle with that.

 

You generally don't want to reset until you've run through the entire main story line once, so you can get that XP a second time (It's a lot).

 

The double XP bonus (while it lasts) ups each virtue quest XP reward to 200K. What the final (shroud) quest gives I have no idea but it must be huge.

 

I remember when they first released the shroud it was just another 100k (now 200k). Maybe it's more now!

 

Totally agree here...

Some quests require extra steps. Forces you to pay attention.

And I love this about Sota.

People want alot of hand holding nowadays.

Yes, there are bugs with some of the quests.

BUT....

To be honest...

9 times out of 10, if there is a quest that I have that I think is bugged... It really isn't.

ITS BECAUSE I SCREWED UP AND DID NOT READ OR FOLLOW DIRECTIONS!!!

 

You give mail to the town criers btw.

 

Aye. The quest log sometimes sequentially adds steps without deleting the earlier steps. I actually like this as it retains context for a quest in the journal, especially helpful if I let a quest sit for a long time. But I agree it can be a bit confusing at times where the story elements are not grouped. Check out the latter entry for the latest quest leg and disregard older stuff if you get stuck. Usually that will advance th story. Good luck!