ARR Quest, What do you want!

[FedeMax]

Which Beta just around the corner, I was thinking just like many others that the typical quest of talk to NPC, kills mobs, go back to NPC, go to next NPC, kills mobs, return and just refresh and repeat. After a while is going to get boring, specially if that becomes the most efficient way to level. So I wanted to creat a thread to hear Ideas for side quest for the DEV team.

How to make quest more interesting!

1. Add animation of a short CG, when you encounter the race for the first time on a quest; the Mobs come at you with growls and at full speed with you taking on arms. (press ESC to bypass CG)

2. Lore lovers. Make puzzules quest according to the lore that the NPC is telling you about. ( I could be 1.0 lore related)

3. Have a comedy quest, there is a important item that you must obtain from an NPC but you must making him laugh. For that you must dance the funky chicken, or some other time of combination. After all of the killing of ladybugs and squirrels a good laugh would be refreshing.

4. Have quest for your class with FF past characters, a ghostly reflection of heros of the past that will teach you about your class and abilities. ( Kindom Hearts style, which is a SE game)

Anyone has ideas for the DEV team of quest styles they would like to see in ARR?

[Zezlar]

I prefer Quality over Quantity. If they can't put in the effort to make me care about what i'm doing then the entire quest is pointless. There's only so many times I can help Joe Schmoe gather XX items or kill XX creatures before I want to rip his heart out. One thing I was disappointed with in 1.0 was how short quests were as well. Most of them were 5-10 minutes of actual work and it was over.

They need to put in some effort to make questing up to par. I don't believe this game will make it that far if they follow that traditional quest model of effortless questing. I need to be entertained with puzzles, quality storyline, memorable characters, cut-scenes to show how awesome said characters are, challenge (I play video games to be challenged, not catered to), and memorable objectives that make the quest fun.

Not every quest has to be an "adventure" but there's a problem when 90% of your quests are mind numbing junk.

[Altena]

I don't mind the odd trash quests because it means I get EXP while I am running around / exploring.. Sure it might get old but I think low level quests are fine to be a bit monotonous, especially while you are still getting the hang of things. They are definitely good for a newer player. I hate bizarre / frustrating / confusing quests when I first start a game.

As levels get higher I would like to see a bit more complexity though.. Sometimes however I don't feel like the workload for the devs is worth it if the quest becomes too complex - especially if they are having to push out that "quantity" to give players enough solo EXP opportunities.

Some simple ideas for quests though would be-
- Quests based on the "transport" between cities / zones Garleans attempt to hijack the Thanalan airship/train/boat.. etc (Boat in a desert? huh?)
- Chocobo based quests such as races to a certain destination within a time limit (perhaps like a medical supply quest in Farcry 3 )
- Protecting a camp from invading beasts/beastmen (could turn this into a FATE event potentially).

[Millerna]

I want to kill 100 Murlocs just to get 1 Murloc head.. I so enjoyed that quest ... *eye starts twitching*

[rina_inverse]

I want to kill 100 Murlocs just to get 1 Murloc head.. I so enjoyed that quest ... *eye starts twitching*

better than have to kill a lottery spawn NM with spawn time up to 8 friggin hours

[Meatdawg]

I like the dailies and monthlies that GW2 has. As your just out doing leves, gathering and crafting your building towards exp bonuses/rewards. Doesn't always have to be the same model of talk to X and kill Y

[mikoto_qc]

i just dont want the game turn into a quest fest. Quality over quantity!

[Millerna]

better than have to kill a lottery spawn NM with spawn time up to 8 friggin hours

Or the original Everquest 1 cleric epic weapon quest, part of which was to kill a dragon (for which you needed a raid of some 30-40 people) which was an open world NM on a 2 real life weeks respawn, and only dropped 1 copy of the quest item ...


How MMO's have changed



(edit: I've never done the quest that way, I did the 'easy' version where you had to get 4 drops that had about a 0.5% drop rate, and hand them in to a dude to spawn the dragon. You still needed 30-40 people for it though, and a group to farm those 4 drops )

[Hulan]

I want to kill 100 Murlocs just to get 1 Murloc head.. I so enjoyed that quest ... *eye starts twitching*

You may want to stop smashing their heads in to kill them.

Joking aside, I've always said that it is a practical impossibility to make a quest based MMO and have all of the quests have good quality. That isn't to say quest based MMOs aren't good, they can be, but they have to very carefully sprinkle rich, interesting quests into the more mundain ones. I would go as far as to say, front-load the game with about 1:2 interesting quests to mediocre quests, then scale back after the first 10 hours to 1:15 or so. By that time, you've got the players' attention, and you can start introducing other elements slowly to fill the gaps: like FATE and dungeons.

"Interesting quests" don't have to be fundumentally different from mundain quests. Some of the best quests in the Final Fantasy games have been hopped up fetch quests or marks. What makes them "interesting" is that the player has to work for it. Make them have to talk to several NPCs to find out about the monster they have to kill, find out about what it is, why it's so dangerous, and why you care.

I'm reminded of the Sleepga II quest line in FFXI; it was, fundumentally, just a series of fetch quests culminating in killing one NM. But it stands out in my mind because the quests had so much character.

[Nadrojj]

Just don't make me have to run all over the place. Often time 90% of the quest was just getting there. Also finding the BLM AF npc made me rage because I didn't realize I had to go down a floor via some crater 10 miles away.