Please, No Collect and Deliver Quests

Discussion in 'Quests & Lore' started by bcxanth, Jul 20, 2013.

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  1. bcxanth

    bcxanth Avatar

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    I'm fairly open-minded about types of quests. I really like a variety of options to be available when I sit down and ask what I want to do in the game that day. However I would like to ask the devs to please give a thought to skipping the Collect and Deliver type of quests. Go out and find me 10 elderberry plants. Go out and collect 12 wolf pelts. So on, and so forth. One of the things that drives me up the wall when playing a game like WoW for instance is these type of games. I'll run around an area for an hour trying to find wolves and only get one pelt for every 10 wolves I kill, and then have to sit around waiting for a respawn. I know that they are basically a way to get players to grind fighting monsters for xp without it feeling like that, but I don't think it really fools anyone.

    Instead I like the quests that have a story to them, where I feel like I'm participating in the world around me. Matron Gwynn asking me to go kill 5 condors so she can make a condor meat pie just doesn't do it for me. However if the Gwynn family farm is being attacked by rabid condors and I have to kill 5 of them to drive off the flock... well, that at least doesn't have me waiting for the RNG to decide each time I loot a corpse if it' got that special quest item I need.
     
  2. Rampage202

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    Agreed, grind quests in general are just pointless filler.

    'Hunting' to craft something specific falls into this category, but because crafting falls completely under 'Optional Side Quest Content' it could get a pass there, but otherwise theres no point in forcing the majority to partake in needless slaughter.
    That being said, what kind of side quests along the main story are you hoping for?

    You step into a tavern and greet the bartender, "What's your fancy, chap?"
     
  3. Vyrin

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    Yes. I would also ask the devs to crowd source quest ideas here so that many good ones could be generated with a richer story.

    Collecting as you mention should also be for the purpose of harvesting/crafting as part of an economy, not as a quest.
     
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  4. Numa

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    Two thumbs up for story driven mini-quests. Mindless grinding is a vexation to the soul.
     
  5. bcxanth

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    As far as side quests go, I'd be hard-pressed to name a "type" of quest I would prefer. I just want it to make sense and have a story that means something. I'm not sure how to articulate the thought, but I just want to feel like I'm doing something for a reason, and not as an excuse for some NPC to give me a reward.
     
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  6. Sir Frank

    Sir Frank Master of the Mint

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    Ok. This is going to be unpopular.

    Let's say Granny Smith needs me to gather 10 apples to make some pies. Not the apples grown by the farmers in the town, but the special apples in a nearby valley. (They never tell you the whole story.) So I go to the nearby valley, and of course, it's full of giant spiders and winged monkeys. So I have to kill lots of spiders and monkeys while gathering apples. Then I drag my tired, bleeding self back to the old ladies house and give her the stupid apples. She pays me, and gives me a couple of pies that give me health or energy or something. She tells me she sells lots of pies, and if I come back tomorrow, she'll hire me to get more apples.

    This is the kind of quest you don't want to see, right? Except, you don't have to do it. If you want some pies, you can do it. You can do it every day to get more pies if you want. Or you can do it to get the combat experience.

    Or you can leave the old witch to get her own stupid apples, and do something more meaningful with your time.

    Doesn't do any harm to have quests like this, as long as they aren't mandatory to follow the storyline quest, whatever that turns out to be.

    My two [not yet revealed monetary units]
     
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  7. Vyrin

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    Why wouldn't good old Granny be an NPC vendor who buys apples and sells pies? Maybe buys apples in exchange for pies. Don't see any reason for this to be a "quest". Just part of the economy.
     
  8. Bowen Bloodgood

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    Ok so basically.. the request isn't to have no fetch quests in the game.. the request is to have more meaningful quests in the game.. and not have meaningless quests as a requirement. Things could get pretty dull with no fetch quests of any kind. What's left aside from kill quests then? (ok there's one or two other categories but they slip my mind at the moment)
     
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  9. bcxanth

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    It's true that with the way the game is going the obvious solution is to just not do the quests. However I would just love to see a game where the creativity of the devs took them beyond the worn out staples of questing mechanics and just didn't include them at all.

    I look at it like this; it's similar to reality TV. No, I obviously don't have to watch another clone of Big Brother, and so therefore it doesn't have any real impact on my life. However wouldn't it be great if the television producers of the world united and decided to never make another reality show that causes brain damage? :)
     
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  10. stile

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    Im in agreement with Sir Frank on this one, that some grind quests exist.. Some people LIKE them *shudders*.. I had someone tell me they liked they Hytbold quests in LOTRO.. this is after I had spent 5 months of doing them when I could, and still had a few days worth left *crys*.... sorry, bad memories. Point is make them COMPLETELY optional for those people. Make it so that they do not give you anything you cannot get another way.

    If you want to buy apples and trade them for pies you can.. but if you want to quest for them instead you can. Don't make them related to a deed of any type or sort, and don't give anything from it you cant get another way. For people that want to grind these sort of quests for resources or resale, let them. Whenever you see key words "come back tomorrow if.."... "Every day I make.. today im having a hard time finding someone to...".. etc, this is a flag this is not important for you to do and you can walk onwards if you want.

    Also keep in mind items binding in SotA will be ultra rare if at all (Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!!! This is one of the things I hate the most about most cookie cutter MMO's).. which means the ones that do like doing these sort of quests can grind them to their hearts content.. and those that don't will be their potential customers. A niche in the community for everyone.
     
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  11. Bowen Bloodgood

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    It'd be pretty hard to have no quests at all but I suppose that would depend on your definition of a quest. There was already a quest in the RTX demo.. granted it wasn't an obvious one but can still be defined as a quest.. and a completely optional one at that. I think it's just that we've been so inundated with "quest" dialogue with predictable goals that it just gets old to keep seeing quests written/designed using the same tired old formula.
     
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  12. bcxanth

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    True, I suppose that's a better way to phrase it. As well I would like that if I have to find X number of items that come from killing something I would like the appearance of that item to not be randomized. Going back to my original post, if I had to collect wolf pelts to help a family make new clothes for the winter after surviving a house fire it makes more sense that every wolf I kill would have a pelt, instead of some RNG rolling each time and making me have to kill 8 wolves before I found one wolf pelt.
     
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  13. Sir Frank

    Sir Frank Master of the Mint

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    I agree! I was just trying to come up with a fetch quest example.


    Agree! I like the meaningful story type quests best too.


    It would be nice if the devs can avoid the tired old quest types.
    It would be nice if tv producers would make better shows, but they won't, and I can't make them. So I haven't had a TV for 7 years. I can control me.
     
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  14. Vyrin

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    @Bowen: Fetch quests could be still in place but for unique items. Lost items. Thievery. And more. Plus, there are many quests I could imagine where killing or fetching would not be the main purpose.
     
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  15. Bowen Bloodgood

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    Oh I know.. I just said I don't recall what those quests would be called. :)
     
  16. stile

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    When I was playing UO I had a couple of regular people I had take care of things for me (so pretend im the npc if you will). I had a person that I had do rune books for me. Id give him my original, and say "make me 5 copies of this" and I paid x per copy. I also had people I would pay for certain supplies, like regs. They'd buy my weekly stock when they would buy their own, and id pay them for the regs + time (I don't remember the amounts, but for an examples sake say double or triple the vendor cost). So im a real live person that had real offers out there and people that would do those for me. Heck at one point in time I had someone that had access to one of my homes, and I had a basic inventory list of "always keep this many of these items, in these chests".. theyd stock me up once a week and then send me the bill.

    So it makes sense there are NPC's that do the same thing and people that want to make an income doing it. Im in major agreement though for making it easy to tell that its a choice and you don't miss out on anything by not doing it.
     
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  17. Vyrin

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    Here are some ideas: missing person, map an unexplored area, investigate a mysterious phenomenon and report, escort a caravan, prove loyalty by..., deliver x to y, false quests that lead to traps, destroy x, find a new route to y, learn another person's secret, contest to build the best x, decorate for event y, reconcile a fight between a and b, cause a fight between a and b, and I could go on and on... it is only limited by the time you spend imagining!
     
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  18. Rampage202

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    Don't forget quests can be tailored for the type of character you want to be by which quests you choose to do (sorta).

    Any number of quests can be made to unlock an extra quest or a chain of quests using flags.
    Lets say...
    Complete Quest 1, 2, 3 in region, (+flag), complete optional objective (+flag), discover and explore an optional side region (+flag). Then in the next town these flags are checked and you get to unlock an extra quest with a rare reward at the end or something.

    I dunno, thats just a 'generic' formula I guess, but you can do a lot with it depending on what exactly those quests entailed.
     
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  19. Ome

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    Tree quests would be cool. Or quests within quests within quests. For instance your on a quest hunting a rare wolf and a humanoid lizard snatches the wolf and brings it to a secret underground by way of elevator hidden in a tree.
    You could keep looking for a rare wolf or you could investigate the elevator in tree leading to a different quest. So instead of the redundant, go to point b then return to point a. It could be go to point b and point c and d pop up. Choose your path
    Avatar. Quests could be big trees with many path choices, quests and more encounters with the unexpected. And even the quest trees could be trees within trees.

    Each branch could have different triggers. It could happen at random and be rare event.
    It could happen at a certain time of day. It could be a combination of triggers
    like time of day, while playing an instrument . Or having a conversation with a friend at a
    certain place and time. There could be tons of triggers and some branch's that are common,
    others that are rare and others that are circumstantial. I'm sure the trigger ideas are endless.
     
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  20. Miracle Dragon

    Miracle Dragon Legend of the Hearth

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    Speaking of the wolf pelts, It will be interesting to see if the combat in the game will be designed to accurately depict damage done during a fight. Some of the reasoning behind the 'randomness' of receiving a pelt or not was that sometimes the pelt would be too ruined to be usable. But if you can control the damage you inflict on a target during your battle, you may be able to improve your chances of receiving that pelt!

    Using blunt weapons rather than sharp ones should preserve the hide/pelt in this case.

    Woodsmen after animal hides tend to set traps for them, rather than shoot them, part of the reason is to protect the product they are after. This might be another option in the game, need 5 wolf pelts? Setup 5 wolf traps.. Come back each day to check them until they are all captured.

    I would love to see this level of detail implemented into combat gameplay.
     
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