Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Quest rushing

    • 388 posts
    May 26, 2019 12:01 PM PDT

    I usually read quests and try to understand the story being told and absorb Lore etc. So far, and I am not sure why, but I am having a really hard time getting into Pantheon Lore. 

    I think I find it overly complicated (for no reason) and well, boring. I am trying really hard to connect to the lore and i just fine myself nodding off instead. 

    Take the Drk Myr lore for instance. They were once seamonkies that killed their own Maker because she 'violated' their bodies while saving them from certain death after being dumped into a new fish bowl (terminus) by sacrificing her immortality to save them.... yet they were somehow in anguish from losing her After they killed her?  The Nythirian red went back into the sea that was poison to them? and now they hate Ermos cause he watched it all and did nothing.... 

    ok.. wut?

    the story just seems ... bad. but it's too late to go back and recreate the Lore of terminus.

    point being, if the lore is this bad, are the quest going to be any better?

    (not trying to derail thread into a Lore discussion, was just using it to make a point) if the story sucks, do you really want to read it?


    This post was edited by Flapp at May 26, 2019 12:04 PM PDT
    • 197 posts
    May 26, 2019 4:27 PM PDT

    For me, there are a couple variables that determine whether I rush through a quest or slow down and delve into the story. If I am in a group, unless we have all agreed to experience the story, I feel a lot of pressure to click through the dialogue. In my experience, group situations just are not conducive to lengthy written narratives. I think this is where ambient voice acting, such as in DDO, can be useful.

    If I am solo, I almost always slow it down and absorb the story as much as possible. It also depends on how much time I have devoted to learning the lore. Quest stories just are not as interesting if you don’t have a frame of reference. You tend to get out of quests, what you are willing to put in, from a story perspective.

  • May 28, 2019 1:56 PM PDT
    Give me interesting but concise quest dialog with the end goal only and a few details to get me started. Then let me figure out the other steps needed to solve it. Bonus points for multiple solutions/choices.

    That's how you create a compelling questing system that I would enjoy and encourages the player to think and plan.
    • 15 posts
    May 28, 2019 2:05 PM PDT

    Why not have quest dialogue have consequences? You pick one path you get the big loot, another medium reward, third gives you a lump of coal?

    • 370 posts
    May 28, 2019 2:48 PM PDT

    SugarCayne said:

    Why not have quest dialogue have consequences? You pick one path you get the big loot, another medium reward, third gives you a lump of coal?

     

    The problem with that is as soon as someone discovers the path with the "best" reward everyone will follow a guide. The other 2 choices simply don't matter anymore since most people will follow the guide and that removes the consequences.

     

    Just do your best to make the story/writing engaging. Some people will like it, some people wont. 

    • 560 posts
    May 28, 2019 2:51 PM PDT

    I am still working on exactly what I want out of quests in a MMO. I found quests in EQ to be annoying for many reasons. I am not a fast reader and I am horrible speller so EQ quest were not designed around my best skill sets. But as I played other games and I will pick on WoW but many games had similar issues I found myself missing the quest system in EQ.

    After playing WoW by going from quest to quest and not really enjoying the experience I convinced my girlfriend into trying to play it the way we played EQ by only taking a quest if you wanted the reward. I was convinced this would make all the difference. I honestly think it made WoW a better but the game was well… lacking in so many other ways. We also found that taking all quests related to a dungeon made our favorite part of a MMO (dungeons crawling) better.

    So to get back to the OP I found that in EQ I very rarely read any of the quest because it was much easier and a lot safer to follow a guide online. In newer games I did lots and lots of quest mostly just for the EXP not the loot and it was just too much to read. Seeing as it was the best way to get EXP I would also being doing quests in a group and I felt taking the time to read them was diminishing the games experience of others. I did find that once we changed and only did quests we wanted the reward for I was more likely to read the quests. I still skipped a lot and I blame this on… well not finding the quest dialog engaging.

    I would like to see lots of quests but by game design people would not want to or not be incentivized to do them all. One way of doing this would be to not give any or very little EXP for doing a quest. I also like Pantheon plan on not having quest hubs. While not having any markers on a quest giver will help I am not sure I will like it (more about this below).

    Again more on point for the OP I will agree with @Dissolution and @HemlockReaper what is the advantage of forcing people that do not want to read the quest to read the quests. If the people enjoyed that aspect of the game would they not do it on their own? If it is important enough to get people to read them I am not sure making changes that do not add fun to the game will get the desired effect.

    No matter what direction pantheon takes with quests, I hope they keep in mind people with disabilities. These small changes could have large impacts. I meet my girlfriend playing EQ back in the day and now that she is visually impaired small things like quest markers, easy to navigate quest dialog, etc. helps a lot.

    I also assume most people will be making alts or finding other reasons to repeat quests. If each time you need to reread the whole quest dialog it could get old very quick.

     

    Just to throw this out there. Would it be possible to have 3rd party quest recordings? I am assuming that Pantheon will not have the budget to add voice dialog to much if any of the quests. It might be interesting to be able to get fan made audio. I could see lots of reasons why this would not work but I think it would be a cool path to consider. I am always more likely to listen to a quest then I am to read it.


    This post was edited by Susurrus at May 28, 2019 8:41 PM PDT
    • 91 posts
    May 28, 2019 10:25 PM PDT

     

    This comment may not be EQ-ically correct, but I really like all the voiceovers in EQ2..

    It's nice when the quest goes a little further and gives an option for maybe a nice response or something a little saltier...I know it's not much, but it helps me..."I lost my shirt in a sea monster fishing accident somewhere off the coast.  Please find it for me?" 

    1. Okay...geez buddy, keep your shirt on

    2. That sounds like an awful day.  Of course I can help..

    3. I would be honored to find your holey shirt

    Maybe that helps because I like to read stuff anyway, and it's true that I like questing that sets a slower pace...

    The types of quest help with that as well....NPC says she has heard of mysterious X item, but she doesn't tell you where it is or how to get the drop...It might sit in my quest log for a very long time, because it's not about wiping out 6 mobs of skellies with a certain disposition for which I have the precise area where said mobs will spawn..(side note...it might be cool to have dispo hunting in there like twice throughout the game)

    Rant warning...[Please don't tell me exactly where to find anything!  Let me puzzle it out of the story!  If the NPC sends me somewhere, don't let me find exactly what I expected...for those of us who still haven't found all the heart containers in Zelda for the NES, make everyone use that guide if they want an easy play.] End of Rant

    That said, someday, when that quest item dings, I'd like to be pleasantly surprised that it's not so obsolete that I make no xp off of it...To help the novelty of a set of quests last, I can see enjoying a quite limited quest log that forces one to choose quests more carefully..If we miss quests because the game is so massive (e.g. MMORPG), maybe we get it on the next toon..or we come back when we have more time.  Of course, if I make more XP off of killing monsters than off of quests and I'm doing quests for the other rewards...seems like a win-win either way.

    My feeling is that I want to play slow and necessarily, I'm exploring alone some of the time...Then I'm going to do the dungeon crawl with the team when the call goes out. So, the Perception system offers a great way to hide quests which then may progress while we're doing our crawl exploring the dungeon.  Definitely going to make me check things out and get distracted from my dispo-mob hunting

    I mean hiding stuff used to be like the bread and butter of RPG's...sooo excited for that to come back in some form with an MMO!!!  I hope they really make the most of those questlines and keep the hints subtle.  If playing slowly has taught me anything it's that searching every corner and finding something worthwhile makes it fun to slow down...and the unexpected nature of the quest dings make the rewards that much sweeter


    This post was edited by Baerr at May 28, 2019 11:04 PM PDT
    • 1019 posts
    May 29, 2019 5:21 AM PDT

    Quest I will do:

    NPC:  Yo, I need ratkin boss killed, you down?

    Me:  Yep.

     

    Quest I wont do:

    NPC:  Once upon a time in a land far away, I lived a good live full of adventure and intrigue.  In a mid summers day whilst out harveting flocks by night I stumbled upon the most odd of oddities you could imagin.  Further examining this odd oddity I found it was in deed quite odd.  So what do you think I did.  Nothing.  Oh and how it haunts me to this day.  So my good sir if you are so inclined I ask that you travel vast distances and search high and low for my journal in which I wrote done more notes about this great oddity and then after I have researched my notes I may be able to explain more about htis oddity to you.  What say you my friend, will you endevor to find my journal, which is on the nightstand in my bedroom in my house which is directly behind me?

    Me:  Whoa, wall of text, I'm out bro, I have ratkin boss to kill.

    • 368 posts
    October 16, 2019 8:31 AM PDT

    Fulton said:

    Crazzie said:

    Many people also rushed through quests and when you mention did you do this quest? response was i dont know ill have to look. Never remembering even doing it before.

    You tube videos helped with that, quick run throughs get past it and move on. Avoiding majority of text that really didnt matter to people unless it was the lore that players loved to follow.

     

    I think part of the issue was also the number of quests in recent games (although most I would call tasks, not quests).

    When you could, and will most likely, do 10,20,30 quests in a play session, you just lose interest in what they are.

    In Early EQ, quests were quests, sure there were some task type quests, but the many of the quests were long drawn out, mutli-level journeys. They also didn't tell you where to go, but would give clues (all solved quickly these days with an internet search). 

    I'd rather have 2-3 multi-level quests in my log and be working on them, than do 10 mini-quests every day.

    This type of system also seemed to provide me with objectives even before logging in, so I wasn't logging in with no real plan.

     

     

    Yes! Just say no to 20 bear asses!