Thread: Suggestion for 2.0: Make quest rewards commensurate to time spent

They should have multiple choices of reward type, having quest rewards bind to character would also stop the problem with quest items destroying the economy.

That being said the quests "are what they are", all MMO's have these boring fetch quests, kill 10 wolfs etc, its unlikely they will change, I do think giving the player the choice between 4-5 different items at the end would be better.

Originally Posted by Hiruke

Currently quests tend to reward relatively low xp and trash items. Putting aside that I'd prefer quests were more interesting in general (I typically just spam enter as the NPCs hit me with like 10 boxes of text, then go do some kind of fetch quest), there are some severe flaws to the current system:

1) Quests tend to reward trash items.

These things just junk up my inventory, and further deflate the price of these items in the Markets as everyone tries to sell them. I've never liked LQs or quests giving you random crafted items, because it takes away from the ability of crafters to make money by selling them.

2) Quests tend to reward low amounts of xp.

Quests take time out of your day. I could make way more xp doing LQs, partying, or even just soloing normal mobs (that last one is key). So, why would I bother doing quests, or if could just run out and kill mobs to get faster xp?

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Quests are limited. Mobs are not. LQs are semi-limited, in that you can only get so many at a time, but they are repeatable. Once any quest you might do that rewards xp has been completed, it's gone forever.

Long story short, I think quests should stop junking up your inventory with trash items, and they should have big xp rewards. I spent all day today doing quests on my 38 THM. After clearing pretty much every quest in the Black Shroud (or at least Gridania), including a number of Grand Company quests, I've yet to gain even a single level. I could have gained a multitude of levels via any other method in that same time frame. Yes, I realize a lot of those quests were for levels way under mine. That said, those quests for folks around level 10? Yeah, they give like 500 xp. I can get that in several whole seconds just killing mobs normally.

So, what was the point of doing the quests? I don't know. Please consider addressing this for 2.0. Considering the xp rewards for doing nearly anything else are huge, and unlimited, I don't think it's out of line to ask that quests, which are severely limited, give rewards commensurate to the time you spend on them. They should be easy, though time-consuming methods of getting a lot of xp.

And by whose or what standards do they measure that?

There are people who wouldn't be satisfied if you gave them half a level worth of xp for running in a straight line. There are people who don't even require a reward to do things; they do them for the enjoyment of playing the game and experiencing that content. And then there's myriad shades in-between. So whose idea of "worthwhile" do they go with?

Originally Posted by Denmo

What do you expect from a new game? Of course they're limited in number. We're talking about the future here, I thought. They're certain to add more quests.

Are you kidding me? Stop trolling. Regardless of whether or not there are 10 quests in the world, or 1,000, they are limited in number. As I stated, mobs are unlimited, and LQs are semi-unlimited. Quests, however, are quite limited. Once you do them, they go away. There is a distinctly finite number of times you can do them. Understand?

Originally Posted by Denmo

And you're requesting that they increase the exp reward for these quests. That's fine. I'm just saying that SE should use caution in the amount of reward they give players for doing something. Too much and it becomes the main thing players will do to level up.

Who even cares? The main thing folks do to level now is to powerlevel each other. How would doing quests be worse? Also, yes, we're talking about the future. Is it a given that quests will be "crummy fetch-um kill-um quests" forever? A lot of folks seem to be white knighting the bazillion text boxes, even though this thread isn't even about that, so clearly a lot of folks think the quests are awesome as is. Are we afraid they will take away from powerleveling time, or repeatedly slaying the same monsters repeatedly? Help me out here.

Originally Posted by Denmo

How so? Making quests more rewarding could also mean 'more fun', 'more challenging', 'more gameplay', 'more options', etc., and not just 'more exp'.

Are you asking SE to just throw together bad quests in 2.0 and onward, and reward you based on how much time you wasted doing them?

Or should you be asking SE to make good, fun quests for 2.0 and onward, ones that reward fairly for the amount of effort put into them?

I don't know how many times I can say that I'm not speaking to how fun quests are. That's not to say that I don't care about that (I do), but regardless of that, the rewards should not be stupid. I'm sorry if I'm not talking about what interests you. Feel free to spin up your own thread and champion your ideas about how quests should be more fun. You shouldn't expect me to do it. I have my own agenda.

Originally Posted by ArkNova

So while an xp boost to side quests would be welcomed its more then likely gonna be a 1 time quest anyway so your next class would have to find a new means of getting xp. If I misunderstood what you were trying to explain I am sorry and would like to elaborate more on it.

Thank you for your reply. I will try to explain a little more:

I don't expect (or want) quests to be your main source of xp for all classes. If you happen to go through every quest and it gets you to cap on one of your classes, that's cool! But I don't think that's necessary.

So, long story short, I'm not advocating quests as a main source of xp.

However, quests are extremely time-consuming. I feel like if you're asking the player to sidetrack themselves in the first place, and you're giving them rewards for doing so, those rewards should be commensurate for the time you spend on them. 500 xp for a level 10 quest, for example, is extremely missable. I can solo several times that amount of xp in the time it would take me to do the quest.

Also, going to call out an older post:

Originally Posted by Skies

And hell I daresay that taking my first dude up to 50 would have been hell without the XP and item rewards from those.

Are you kidding me? The xp and items from levequests are far greater than quests, so I have a hard time believing doing quests really saved you, especially since levequests are not limited in number.

Originally Posted by Dragon

Know how it's easy to spot a good quest from a bad quest? Remove the rewards from all of them and then complete them. A good quest needs no reward, and that's what this game needs.

I respect your opinion. If they want to literally remove all rewards, and make them extremely fun to just do, I would be on board with that. I don't think that will happen, however. It would be better if they increased rewards and, additionally, made them a lot of fun to play. (Similarly, I don't see them making "intense" battles like Ifrit drop zero rewards, and the opportunity to do them being their own reward - though, arguably, the terribad drop rate kind of makes that the case many times.) Since there are rewards, they should be good.

Originally Posted by Elexia

Most of the quests in XIV (side) that rewards 'low xp' and 'trash items' did you ever look at the levels? That's right, most aren't designed for capped players, they're designed to be done as you level. It's like complaining about your class quests giving you little to no exp at level 50 even though they're designed to be undertaken as you progress in levels, not once you hit 50.

The rewards shouldn't scale upwards upwards at all as they already scale if you do a level 45 quest then switch to a low level class.

Admittedly, I like being trolled by folks who create a toon specifically so they can post anonymously on the official forums. 0 xp for any class and almost 3,000 posts? Haha.

As expected from a blatant troll, you're way off the mark. I never asked for "xp to scale". Did you mistake this for a post saying "wah, I did level 40 caravan and at the end I switched to my level 20 miner and only got 1k xp instead of the 6k everyone else got waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah"?

If you actually read my post, you'll actually see me talk about how many of the quests I did were under (not over, which is where "scaling xp" would come from - thanks for playing, though!) my level. I then went into more detail on why those xp rewards were still stupid (specifically, 500 xp for a level 10 quest... useless, missable).

The best part of your troll is when you say "they aren't designed for capped players". No kidding? Because capped players would get zero xp from the quests.

Since you obviously have nothing to contribute, and likely never will since you are posting on some crazy troll account instead of your main character, don't be surprised when I completely ignore you for the rest of all time. Have fun trolling someone else.

Originally Posted by Jinko

They should have multiple choices of reward type, having quest rewards bind to character would also stop the problem with quest items destroying the economy.

That being said the quests "are what they are", all MMO's have these boring fetch quests, kill 10 wolfs etc, its unlikely they will change, I do think giving the player the choice between 4-5 different items at the end would be better.

I'd be happy if the items were at least unique to the quest, or at the very least not craftable. Or, like, good. Or something. I just vendor all of them, so any change to that is welcome.

Originally Posted by Preypacer

And by whose or what standards do they measure that?

There are people who wouldn't be satisfied if you gave them half a level worth of xp for running in a straight line. There are people who don't even require a reward to do things; they do them for the enjoyment of playing the game and experiencing that content. And then there's myriad shades in-between. So whose idea of "worthwhile" do they go with?

That's a very good point. I intentionally elected not to suggest a specific amount for the rewards. I simply wanted to call attention to why (I feel) the current rewards are unsatisfactory. I'm happy leaving it to the dev team to decide whether or not they agree with me, and how much they should increase rewards (if at all).

Originally Posted by Hiruke

Also, as an aside, don't bother to try white knighting how "fun" quests are to me unless you've at least got the "Fragments of the Truth" Lodestone achievement (which I have). That alone I think demonstrates how dedicated I am to lore and/or rabid completionism with no reward whatsoever. Unless you count Lodestone achievements, I guess!

Oh, how pointless of you, trying to control and narrow the discussion, are you saying people have to find Urianger and give him a faded page to be competently able to tell you quests are fun? They're fun(oh hey look I have "Fragments of the Truth"), they give a good amount of exp, and the items obtained are usable by the levels the quest recommends, they may not be the best items, but they are good for using if you have nothing else, or have an irrational fear of the market wards, also they NPC for a good price most of the time.

Originally Posted by Kayokane

Oh, how pointless of you, trying to control and narrow the discussion, are you saying people have to find Urianger and give him a faded page to be competently able to tell you quests are fun? They're fun(oh hey look I have "Fragments of the Truth"), they give a good amount of exp, and the items obtained are usable by the levels the quest recommends, they may not be the best items, but they are good for using if you have nothing else, or have an irrational fear of the market wards, also they NPC for a good price most of the time.

100% correct in everything you stated. The main things to consider, is they're designed in a particular way, but due to powerleveling a lot of people actually miss the point of em unless they actually go seeking them since they are after all, side quests, not "progress my character 1 level/120,000g per" type quests so they're there for additional bits of lore/something to do/items and exp if you're low enough level.

it's the same thing with people complaining about the early GC quests being too easy because they did Ifrit at 50 rather than around level 30, which yes mini ifrit is a decent challenge when you do it at the suggested level in a party, it's not hard but it's more fun than 1 WS = dead.

Originally Posted by Kayokane

Oh, how pointless of you, trying to control and narrow the discussion, are you saying people have to find Urianger and give him a faded page to be competently able to tell you quests are fun? They're fun(oh hey look I have "Fragments of the Truth"), they give a good amount of exp, and the items obtained are usable by the levels the quest recommends, they may not be the best items, but they are good for using if you have nothing else, or have an irrational fear of the market wards, also they NPC for a good price most of the time.

I think you are missing the point, too. This thread was not started to talk about how fun quests are (or aren't). They are talking about the rewards. If you think keeping the discussion on topic is pointless, please, by all means, enter politics with all haste.

Most posts in this thread are total derails, saying "quests are fun" "why don't you think quests are fun?" "stop clicking through tons of text boxes, they are the entire point!". My assertion is I'm doing the quests anyway, and have gone far out of my way to do other things with no tangible reward for the sake of lore and/or completionism, so clearly my concern is not that. It's that if there are rewards, they should be good rewards. Do you disagree? Do you think 500 xp at level 10 is "totally worth it"? How about 1k xp for a quest more in the 30s?

But, by all means, let's talk about how fun quests are. What do you think makes them awesome? While we're at it, what do you think about the jump feature? Are you also a fan of swimming? Do you think we'll get Cloud's Buster Sword in this game?

Originally Posted by Hiruke

Do you think we'll get Cloud's Buster Sword in this game?

BUSTER MACUAHUITL!