I don't know if I am alone in saying this, but anytime I have ever received quest experience, I almost always seem to feel a sense of loss rather than a sense of accomplishment.
Even though I know I am being rewarded simply for the effort put forth in the quest, the feeling that I get is one of being rushed through a level.
This is probably because I find the most enjoyment in online worlds from the aesthetic experience rather than anything else.
If I am not the only person who experiences this, then I wonder if VR might consider a system where players could opt out of quest experience in favor of slightly more coin.
There was also a thread not long ago - which I do NOT want to revive - where someone asked if they could have a way to voluntarily turn off the gaining of XP, for various reasons. There was quite a strong response from the communty, with much disagreement and strong feelings on both sides. I fear you will run into the same issue if you get much of a debate going on such a similar question.
In general terms, I agree with you that in the past I have at times felt disappointment that I was outleveling an enjoyable zone before I finished all the quests.
You know, this a really good point. A good way to implement something similar might be along the lines of questing giving minimal experience until you get to the end of a chain. As a reward, you get an item that can be turned in for a large chunk of XP.
That way you could somewhat 'bank' it. There are times where I feel like I'm being rushed, but also certainly times where I just want to level and move on.
Jothany said:There was also a thread not long ago - which I do NOT want to revive - where someone asked if they could have a way to voluntarily turn off the gaining of XP, for various reasons. There was quite a strong response from the communty, with much disagreement and strong feelings on both sides. I fear you will run into the same issue if you get much of a debate going on such a similar question.
In general terms, I agree with you that in the past I have at times felt disappointment that I was outleveling an enjoyable zone before I finished all the quests.
Yeah I would never advocate for being able to turn off all forms of experience simultaneously, since I think there could potentially be some issues with zone congestion if too many players were stagnating at a specific level range.
With the exception of low levels, quest experience has almost always been acquired at only a fraction of the rate as combat experience, so I don't see that stagnation thing happening with what I was talking about in my OP.
I was part of the group asking for a toggle to turn off exp gain and so would be fine with the ability to turn off experience from quests. I do not think it is a good idea to substituting the loss of experience for anything else. But I am also just against quests being a primary way of gaining experience. I feel this was one of the major differences from EQ and newer MMO’s I have played.
In EQ I only did a quest if I wanted the loot from. I would often not even take a quest I was helping someone else on just because the reward was not something I would use. But in later games I felt the need to take every quest regardless of the item I might get. The experience gain was so rewarding there was little choice but to take them. For me this made the open world seem like a guided tour with very little variation.
While playing WoW we did an interesting test. We had played since Beta and had maxed out our first couple toons playing, I think as WoW intended taking every quest we could find. After putting the game down for some time due to boredom we thought maybe if we played it like EQ skipping all quest it might be more interesting. What we found is that the game lacked a large enough world for that to work but also quests are fun. Anyways my stance now is quests are good but giving experience as a reward encourages people take them even if they do not want to do them.
Nekentros said: I wonder if VR might consider a system where players could opt out of quest experience in favor of slightly more coin.
It has already been said that most Quest's will not be granting Experience.
I shared this in my post about the Perception system: Perception System: what we know so far
To save you the time if you don't want to read through all of that post to find the part about no Quest exp here it is for you.
Let’s go back to our Early Monk Gameplay video with CohhCarnage at 50:57 the question about grinding mobs vs questing to level up. Joppa lays it out for us.
Joppa says: “So our quest system, perception system is pretty unique. One of the decisions we made was to remove the leveling focus from our quest system, because part of what we are wanting to do is to move away from the 'On the rails' approach, that linear approach to questing. When questing is your primary way to level up then that's all you are really looking for is the next round of quests. So while there will be some quests that provide experience, the primary way you will level up in Pantheon is through combat, through vanquishing enemies. There will probably be some experience gains tied into certain, when your character gains skills in certain ways as you are progressing through the perception system for example or crafting system. We are open to the idea of tying some of those advancements into your adventuring experience. What you will not see is quest hub after quest hub filled with quests and then working through your quest journal as the fastest way to level.”
I think there are a lot of variables here.
1) The rate of experience gain in general from all activities. If you're banging out a level a day that's a lot different than if that level is taking you a week or more to complete.
2) The amount of experience gained from quests. If you complete a quest and see your XP bar improve by 20%, that's very different from if you see it improve by 2%
3) The other rewards you get from the quests.
4) How often you're doing quests.
5) Your personal playstyle.
There is no one-size-fits-all answer.
Neph's personal opinion:
- I will always support giving players the option to choose to slow down their own leveling by turning off experience gain from any and all sources.
- Every quest should have rewards appropriate to the level of effort involved in completing the quest.
- Experience gain *is* a valid and appropriate reward for completing quests, but it does not have to apply to simple tasks like "deliver this package for me". There are and should be other rewards that can be used such as coin, faction, or items.
GoofyWarriorGuy said:It has already been said that most Quest's will not be granting Experience.
This I am aware, but thank you for posting the link for those who may not have been.
I probably should have been more specific in terms of the game and period I was drawing from, because it would have made it much more clear as to what exactly I was referring to.
So I was drawing from my classic eq days, which a lot of people know to mean that there really wasn’t what most people consider to be "on the rails" questing at that time, as the impact of quest experience very quickly followed a trajectory of diminishing returns. It is true that at early levels you could essentially turn in bags full of a specific quest item and very quickly skip past 2, 3 or even more levels quite quickly, but those types of quests really weren’t an issue since they did not involve a 'rare item' and one could easily opt out thus avoiding the issue I brought up in my OP.
One might think, “Well if it wasn't an "on the rails issue", and the exp gained from partaking in a rare item type quest was so insignificant, why all the fuss?". To that ill just have to refer you to my OP.