In EQ I spent most of my time not doing quests and most of my gear was either gotten off of named mobs or by purchasing from the market. Plat I gained by a combo of farming mobs that dropped a lot of plat, by selling gear I got off of nameds and by being a clever trader on the market. In VG it seemed I always had a ton of quests going on and much of my good gear was gotten via quests.
Myself I don't have a strong preference either way concerning the volume of quests offered . I enjoyed how EQ and VG handled things equally though they were handled in very different ways. As EQ got older, more and more quests were added, but there still wasn't the sheer volume of quests offered in VG. I must say though that for cool little items such as Jboots and Workers Sledge Mallet (procced a port to OT evil outpost) I did enjoy the fact that quests were attached to them. I also liked the mount quests in VG and the massive quests in EQ for things such as epic weapons and for keys to zones. For things like general gear and weapons though, I have no real preference.
How do you feel on the matter, how important is it to you to have quests? I do remember them stating that Pantheon won't have the major "quest hubs" like VG did but there will indeed be quests scattered throughout the world.
I think there should be a good balance between both.
Quests can help open up a area or send you to somewhere you might not have known about, but i don't want quests to lead me through the whole game, i still want to just run over that hill for no other reason than to see what's there.
Quests become a problem when they become Tasks, as they have been in all other games since Everquest. Busy work is retarded and doesn't belong in a Pay to Play MMORPG. Methods of obtaining gear from quests should make sense, and be few and far between. This leatherworker at the nearby village needs pelts supplied to him by adventurers and if you get him 10, he'll take 5 and make you some leather pants. It should not be expected or counted on that players do these quests, as it was in Everquest. They should simply be there to add immersion and an alternative to grinding if you feel like getting more immersed and being a part of the world.
There should be faction gains and decreases associated with every quest, and this should be the heart of why someone who doesn't want to be fully immersed would want to do them, but no one should ever feel absolutely obligated to undertake the faction grind. Epic quests themselves should require heavy faction work and many raid and group targets, as well as group/raid related events. Epic quests are also an excellent place to prevent Mudflation, because you can require that players help someone out during the quest. This person may require some pieces from dungeons/bosses around the lands.
I prefer quests, especially for gear or other items. I also prefer the graduated quests, that you can do at various levels like mini epic quests. For in going to those areas to see what is there and get xp and coin along the way and maybe learn a bit about the place. Drops are nice in the interim, but I think quested items should be slightly better than the normal drop items. Also, I like hokey, tear-jerker, faction/town quests. Some are nice, calm, level 1 type stuff like collecting donations for the temple, or something and are nice to do at higher levels if you have had enough of extreme danger and don't feel like crafting. or even those with minimal danger.
For me and my experience quests are very important. Not as a means of getting levels or gear (exclusively) but to flesh out the world, have interesting tasks and occasionally offer rare or interesting treasures (which could include gear, expensive materials/items, ability to access something new, etc.). I don't like or want quest hubs (at least in the sense of WoW style going from hub to hub, a lot of quests being centered around a city though would be ok) and I don't want quests to be primarily a method of getting gear or exp.
Manouk said:
I prefer quests, especially for gear or other items. I also prefer the graduated quests, that you can do at various levels like mini epic quests. For in going to those areas to see what is there and get xp and coin along the way and maybe learn a bit about the place. Drops are nice in the interim, but I think quested items should be slightly better than the normal drop items. Also, I like hokey, tear-jerker, faction/town quests. Some are nice, calm, level 1 type stuff like collecting donations for the temple, or something and are nice to do at higher levels if you have had enough of extreme danger and don't feel like crafting. or even those with minimal danger.
I feel that this should NEVER be the case, quested items should never be better than dropped items, and even on top of that, quested items should be incredibly rare and there should be no way to fill even half of your slots with quested items in any given level range, especially within 25% of max level. I would actually prefer there be no quested items, but that's maybe going a bit too far for everyone else.
The only exception of course being Epic quests.
Rallyd said:
Manouk said:
I prefer quests, especially for gear or other items. I also prefer the graduated quests, that you can do at various levels like mini epic quests. For in going to those areas to see what is there and get xp and coin along the way and maybe learn a bit about the place. Drops are nice in the interim, but I think quested items should be slightly better than the normal drop items. Also, I like hokey, tear-jerker, faction/town quests. Some are nice, calm, level 1 type stuff like collecting donations for the temple, or something and are nice to do at higher levels if you have had enough of extreme danger and don't feel like crafting. or even those with minimal danger.
I feel that this should NEVER be the case, quested items should never be better than dropped items, and even on top of that, quested items should be incredibly rare and there should be no way to fill even half of your slots with quested items in any given level range, especially within 25% of max level. I would actually prefer there be no quested items, but that's maybe going a bit too far for everyone else.
The only exception of course being Epic quests.
I sortof agree with this and sortof don't. On one hand I don't think quest items should inherently be better than other items, I don't see why questing should be held above other means to obtain gear. On the other, I do want quests to occasionally offer rare and powerful items that may or may not be among the best obtainable for a given level. Ultimately I would say I don't want quests to be the exclusive source of good items.
npc quest givers are here to tell you the game's lore, to make you feel you are part of this virtual world, to discover its secrets.
quests may have multiple possible rewards, items are just one of them.
items are an other subject about balancing between : mob drops , crafted items and quest rewards.
in EQ I remember a very good quest : the coldain prayer shawl quest series (I was a caster, for melee it was slightly different).
it had a lot of interesting things : faction hits, crafting, help needed (for group and raid parts) for an item increasing in power further you advance into the quest.
I love quests. not the kill 10000 wolves type quests, but the quests like the coldain prayer shawl, or the epic weapons quests, or other quests that give me items that are useful to me. especially items that are useful for years to come.
and those quests should be long and arduous. they should be an achievement. not go kill 2 slimes and i will give you the slimes nucleus which strengthens summoned creatures by 10000%
Mephiles said:
Rallyd said:
Manouk said:
I prefer quests, especially for gear or other items. I also prefer the graduated quests, that you can do at various levels like mini epic quests. For in going to those areas to see what is there and get xp and coin along the way and maybe learn a bit about the place. Drops are nice in the interim, but I think quested items should be slightly better than the normal drop items. Also, I like hokey, tear-jerker, faction/town quests. Some are nice, calm, level 1 type stuff like collecting donations for the temple, or something and are nice to do at higher levels if you have had enough of extreme danger and don't feel like crafting. or even those with minimal danger.
I feel that this should NEVER be the case, quested items should never be better than dropped items, and even on top of that, quested items should be incredibly rare and there should be no way to fill even half of your slots with quested items in any given level range, especially within 25% of max level. I would actually prefer there be no quested items, but that's maybe going a bit too far for everyone else.
The only exception of course being Epic quests.
I sortof agree with this and sortof don't. On one hand I don't think quest items should inherently be better than other items, I don't see why questing should be held above other means to obtain gear. On the other, I do want quests to occasionally offer rare and powerful items that may or may not be among the best obtainable for a given level. Ultimately I would I don't want quests to be the exclusive source of good items.
I agree. Its all about scaling rewards based on what it takes to achieve them. You can't say one should provide better rewards than the other simply "because."
I do think many of us will agree on 2 things.
1) We are tired of cheesy quest progression where trivial tasks serve as the primary means of item progression. I personally don't think any good items should be gained from content I can complete entirely solo, whether dropped, quested or crafted; the only exception being lower level rare spawn mobs.
2) Quest rewards can be significant if the quest requires a group/raid and multiple rare items that actually take time to acquire.
I personally enjoy quests, I like gaining reputation and I like lore and stories that give the world depth. I think those kinds of quests should be far more common than quests that give significant item rewards.
It really comes down to bringing back the balance of Risk VS Reward in questing.
If the reward for a quest is a magical item that is bound to be better than most players have at the level the quest is given and intended to be completed, then the risk that is required to receive that reward must match or exceed the reward. I'm not against quests at all, in fact I love them, if they follow the laws of Risk VS Reward.
World of Warcraft did the opposite of this, the reward was high, often best in slot for level for most of your way to max level, yet the risk required to complete the quest was absolutely ZERO.
Quests are important but not the stupid Kill 10 Spiders or collect 10 flowers those are just a waste of time and ruin the immersion. What I found interesting is the mystery of the quests in EQ and that they weren't very obvious. I want quests to feel special like loot and can take months before someone figures them out and quests that go much longer unsolved.
Important is tough to define. Here would be my rules for quests:
1) Fed-Ex quests tend to be unimportant by nature, no matter how much story you wrap it in the fact killing 10 rats is trivial makes it busy work.
2) Putting 100 Fed-Ex quests together does not make them important. Doing something trivial 100 is just annoying.
3) Tying progression to quests does not make them important and is ultimately self defeating, because the story line will be glossed over in the rush to advance.
4) Giving big experience rewards for some quests does not make them important, the important thing remains getting the experience. I wonder how many players on project 1999 even know why they are handing in gnoll fangs.
5) Having a huge number of quests reduces the importance of all quests. How many players couldn't tell you in detail why they are doing each of the 20 quests in their journal.
6) Conversely having few, infrequent quests makes them more special, gets players looking forward to them, and gives them more importance.
7) While people always seem to be in a hurry to advance they seem to feel less of a sense of urgency about getting a great item, so if you want the emphasis to remain on the quest, good items or abilities are better quest rewards.
8) Don't obsess over making sure each step in a larger quest can be accomplished in one session. I've had quests where one step required killing over 100 mobs and you still feel like you made progress if you log in for a half hour and kill 20.
9) What makes quests epic is only partly how great the reward is. It is also what players had to go through to get it. How meaningful the quest is has a lot to do with how meaningful the accomplishment of each step is.
10) Quests will tend to encourage solo play until some clever developer figures out how to reward people who help with quests.
Great discussion. All we have stated publicly is this: Pantheon will be more like EQ, with fewer quests but more epic ones, leading to great rewards. It will not be like Vanguard and other games, e.g. Quest Hub driven, where you go to one hub, do a bunch of quests, and then move to the next. We want more of an open world and sandbox feeling.
Aradune said:Great discussion. All we have stated publicly is this: Pantheon will be more like EQ, with fewer quests but more epic ones, leading to great rewards. It will not be like Vanguard and other games, e.g. Quest Hub driven, where you go to one hub, do a bunch of quests, and then move to the next. We want more of an open world and sandbox feeling.
This pleases me. I think that a heavily based questing game tends to have a restrictive feel on the player. Almost like "you have to follow this questline and stick to the script as you progress through zones". Nah, that's not fun. It's like the devs are holding my hand as I progress through their world. I don't want my hand held. I want to find some mobs my level, test my metal against them, and then when they get too easy I want to look for bigger and badder monsters by exploring on my own.
I'm not saying do away with quests, however. I think they are a good way to get some decent gear/exp/faction. What I am saying is that I don't think NPCs should have a huge exclamation mark over their head essentailly yelling at us "Hey! Over here!". Make us figure out for ourselves who's going to offer a nice little questline or who just wants to have a nice chat. The "Hail" system in Everquest was great, let's stick to that. I liked this system because it offered quests as a little bonus. A sweet surprise that we feel we stumbled upon by being thorough in our exploration.
Fewer in quantity but higher in quality. A perfect baseline approach, Brad and one that I'm glad you're using. Warhammer Online and Rift had quest givers everywhere and many of those 'quests' were, and I kid you not, to literally cross the road in front of the quest giver and kill 10 mobs that are just standing there. A spell caster did not even need to move to complete the quest. That isn't a quest..it's barely a task to be honest. What it is is lazy design.
Aradune said:Great discussion. All we have stated publicly is this: Pantheon will be more like EQ, with fewer quests but more epic ones, leading to great rewards. It will not be like Vanguard and other games, e.g. Quest Hub driven, where you go to one hub, do a bunch of quests, and then move to the next. We want more of an open world and sandbox feeling.
Sounds good. I like the concept of fewer quests but the quests that do exist should be really well put together and should feel pretty epic giving you a decent reward for completing them. I always hated in World of Warcraft that you were basically give a quest to kill 5 mobs and that was it. That isn't fun and isn't even interesting.
EQ has some pretty cool quests that were really interesting to do but it also had a few boring quests as well but that is to be expected. Not every quest is going to be perfect. As long as the aim is to make a few very high quality quests I am happy.
Sounds like Pantheon is going to be doing this properly.
Aradune said:Great discussion. All we have stated publicly is this: Pantheon will be more like EQ, with fewer quests but more epic ones, leading to great rewards. It will not be like Vanguard and other games, e.g. Quest Hub driven, where you go to one hub, do a bunch of quests, and then move to the next. We want more of an open world and sandbox feeling.
Does that mean players could level up by killing primarily or even entirely should they choose to, which it what i prefer. I like quests when the story is interesting or theres a specific item i want from it, but absolutely appall XP being tied to them exclusively.
Aradune said:Great discussion. All we have stated publicly is this: Pantheon will be more like EQ, with fewer quests but more epic ones, leading to great rewards. It will not be like Vanguard and other games, e.g. Quest Hub driven, where you go to one hub, do a bunch of quests, and then move to the next. We want more of an open world and sandbox feeling.
I certainly prefer this style. I find with a sandbox style game that quests (for leveling/non-epic gear purposes) that you have too much of a mob kill line. Think jboots. On Xev we had a kill line that pretty much rotated a person in for the drop as a previous person got the drop. It was effective and quite kind to players as opposed to needing to get a fresh group and hoping no one was camping. However, since it was a single non-instanced location it was incredibly boring to wait for and took away from what the game was meant to be.
I love quests. It makes grinding mobs for xp more than just "grinding" to me. Hopefully there will be some quests in game. I can't see why it would hurt to give minor rewards for doing quests. Nothing that would break the balance.
I really like the epic quests in EQ. Hopefully these will be in Pantheon.
Vandraad said:Fewer in quantity but higher in quality. A perfect baseline approach, Brad and one that I'm glad you're using. Warhammer Online and Rift had quest givers everywhere and many of those 'quests' were, and I kid you not, to literally cross the road in front of the quest giver and kill 10 mobs that are just standing there. A spell caster did not even need to move to complete the quest. That isn't a quest..it's barely a task to be honest. What it is is lazy design.
Agreed! Rift was a lazy quest design. I fear there are far more games like that now. The Aisian markets are full of them. NCSoft and GW2 are heading towoard that now. Must be easy to do. Cut and paste approach.
The LotrO had an interesting take on the quests. The storyline version not the open world. You walked the lore and that made it fun to do.
Ox
I liked how EQ did quest. You only had to do what u wanted. Hated wow where if u did not do quest u lvl slow and hate that even though the mobs in the area where still good exp had to move cuz u did all the quest. VG was good too so aslong as it not like wow i will be happy.